The Star Wars prequel trilogy - Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Episode II - Attack of the Clones, and Episode III - Revenge of the Sith - released nearly two decades after the original trilogy concluded in the early 1980s. Unfortunately, George Lucas' latest chapters weren't exactly what fans hoped they would be, and those objections were evidenced in critics' berating of the prequels in their brutal reviews.Lucas' original 1977 Star Wars film released as a single story, but when the filmmaker was gearing up for the sequel, he announced plans to expand his then-burgeoning Star Wars saga into nine parts, broken into three trilogies. The original trilogy was being told first, with the prequel and sequel trilogies coming later. While Walt Disney Studios-owned Lucasfilm is currently helming their own version of Lucas' tales in the ongoing Star Wars sequel trilogy, Lucas took it upon himself in the late 1990s and early 2000s to write, direct, and produce each installment in the prequel trilogy (though he only really wanted to come up with the stories and let others helm the films).Related: Mark Hamill Praises Star Wars Prequels' OriginalityAlthough the Star Wars prequels are among the lowest rated films in the franchise, despite having redeemable qualities, they still managed to rake in hefty sums at the domestic and worldwide box office. The Phantom Menace, for instance, earned an approximate $757 million domestically when adjusting for ticket price inflation. But those box office hauls didn't preclude the films from being ridiculed by many critics, with some going as far as to call the films abominable.
The Phantom Menace
The actors are wallpaper, the jokes are juvenile, there's no romance, and the dialogue lands with the thud of a computer-instruction manual. ... McGregor is saddled with lines like, "I have a bad feeling about this." And Neeson must answer, "Be mindful of the living Force, my young Padawan." Ouch! Is it a coincidence that Phantom Menace and James Cameron's Titanic whose box-office record ($1.8 billion worldwide) Lucas is chasing were made by men with a poet's eyes and tin ears? - Rolling Stone
Neeson gives the film's best performance, in the only full-dimensional human role. McGregor will make a strong Obi-Wan in future episodes, but he has little more than a supporting part here. Portman is mostly wasted as the stiff, overdressed queen, and though kids will love Lloyd, parents may be reminded of Beaver Cleaver when he speaks. - New York Daily News
...No matter how much detail went into turning clumsy sidekick Jar Jar Binks into an expressive digital creation, he can't overcome Lucas' conception of him as an incomprehensible "Amos 'n' Andy"-type blubberer (actually, he sounds most like a prepubescent Mushmouth from "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids") who walks in an exaggerated pimp strut. He's not the only ethnic caricature, either; the Trade Federation officials sound like stock Oriental villains. - Chicago Tribune
George Lucas has been quoted as saying that "actors are still the best way to portray people," but, in watching his Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace, you get the feeling he wishes it wasn't so -- that he could dispense with actors altogether. ... Being human has never seemed more humdrum. And maybe this was Lucas's intention: By making his CGI creatures -- his 'droids and globs and thingamajigs -- so much more captivating than his people, he's striking a blow for the primacy of special effects over human effects. At this point in his career, he may not know, or care about, the difference. - New York Mag
...unfortunately for a film that has three times more computer-generated shots than any previous effort, its biggest miscalculation is a computer-generated sidekick. That would be Jar Jar Binks. Looking like a large and ungainly sea horse, Jar Jar, who inexplicably speaks in a kind of Caribbean patois, is a major miscue, a comic-relief character who's frankly not funny. The Gungan as a whole prove very difficult to understand, and when you can make out what they're saying ("You're in big do-do this time") you wish you hadn't. - Los Angeles Times
The numerous reviews that chastised The Phantom Menace all agreed that George Lucas misjudged what made the original Star Wars trilogy so special and how to use its star power. What's more, everyone thought Lucas' dialogue, though coming from good intentions, fell flat. That's something that even the movie's strongest supporters can also agree on.
Attack Of The Clones
There is a certain lifelessness in some of the acting, perhaps because the actors were often filmed in front of blue screens so their environments could be added later by computer. Actors speak more slowly than they might--flatly, factually, formally, as if reciting. Sometimes that reflects the ponderous load of the mythology they represent. At other times it simply shows that what they have to say is banal. "Episode II-- Attack of the Clones" is a technological exercise that lacks juice and delight. The title is more appropriate than it should be. - Roger Ebert
Surprisingly flat-footed dialogue scenes that feature wooden acting, dreary art direction and old fashioned optical wipes are either intended as an homage to the sci-fi of the '50s or reflect the director's impatience with exposition. ...Meanwhile, the lovebirds' story veers into camp. These two fall in love not because romance sparks but to suit the needs of subsequent movies. Worse yet, the actors woo to the most stilted lines of the movie: Anakin to Padme, "You are everything soft and smooth." Or later, "I am haunted by the kiss you should not have given to me." And by lines that should never have been written. - The Hollywood Reporter
Attack of the Clones, like Phantom Menace before it, is a cold, cold movie. It skillfully touches on countless emotional pressure points, but never pulls us into its universe, or completely involves us with the personalities populating it. ... AotC seems content to skirt along the perimeters of emotional resonance, but never commits to taking us on a journey of any substance. It is rarely involving, rarely rousing, and never stirring. It is deliberate and mechanical, and little more. - IGN
We'll never see another "Star Wars," no matter how much we want to. And we want to very much. ...The plot is standard, and the dialogue, even for something intended for young people, is curiously flat. It ranges from the pious ("The day we stop believing democracy can work is the day we lose it") to the predictive ("Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the death of me," Obi-Wan Kenobi jokes to Anakin) to the pathetic, as when Anakin grumbles about Padme Amidala, "I've thought about her every day since we parted--and she's forgotten me completely." - Los Angeles Times
"Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones" could be the worst movie ever made and still it would have the faithful rallying around the Lucas franchise. ... Against that army of formidable opponents, it seems like a waste of breath to point out the flaws in a movie that isn't really a movie at all: truncated sequences that don't string together into a coherent story, dialogue that may as well have been cobbled together out of pieces of wood instead of words, love scenes shot to look like douche commercials. ... This is a fantasy with no poetry in it. - Salon
Again, the biggest complaint for Attack of the Clones, besides the overuse of CGI, was the film's atrocious dialogue, specifically the cliched lines uttered between Anakin and Padme. Interestingly, though, it seems most reviewers agreed that the third act - the Battle of Geonosis - was enough to redeem the movie in at least some regard.
Revenge Of The Sith
Drink the Kool-Aid. Wear blinders. Cover your ears. Because that's the only way you can totally enjoy Revenge of the Sith ” the final and most futile attempt from skilled producer, clumsy director and tin-eared writer George Lucas to create a prequel trilogy to match the myth-making spirit of the original Wars saga he unleashed twenty-eight years ago. - Rolling Stone
The picture is laden with plot and difficult to follow, even for someone who has seen every "Star Wars" installment. The action scenes are overlong and unexciting, and if anyone needs to take a bathroom break, go during a light saber duel. They'll still be fighting when you get back. ... Perhaps as a result of playing to this audience, Lucas occasionally loses focus and presents the story as if it were merely a vehicle through which cultists might bask in a cherished fantasy. When Lucas does that, he's giving way to the dark side. - San Francisco Chronicle
The dialogue is astonishingly feeble, the acting unforgivably wooden. To paraphrase Yoda, the only creature with truly human dimensions ever since Harrison Ford's cowboy-mechanic Han Solo departed the galaxy: Bored I am. ... I admit to a thrill of sick delight when the black Darth Vader mask at last descends upon the face of Anakin, sealing his fate and changing his breathing, bringing full circle something that began with far more offhand charm back in 1977. It's a reminder that in the "Star Wars" saga, there are pockets of brilliance, surrounded by the yawning emptiness of space. - New York Daily News
Anakin/Vader turns out to be a petulant wuss, a brat who chooses evil because he didn't get the Jedi promotion he wanted. Instead of meaningful anti-heroism, we've got this bitter fellow gulled by the ego strokes and patently false promises of Ian McDiarmid's Senator Palpatine. At the pivotal moment when Anakin/ Vader says, œI'll do anything you want, his hubris” his moment of tragic downfall”is undercut by McDiarmid's devilishly arch line-reading, a smugly purred œGo-o-o-o-o-o-d! Laughter erupted even from the faithful assembled at the big screening I attended. - New York Magazine
There is nothing fun about Sith, except maybe the opening space battle, and it's not so much an adventure as an ordeal. Ian McDiarmid, who's afforded a larger role than Portman, lays it on thick as the villainous Supreme Chancellor-cum-Emperor Palpatine, but his mustache-twirling performance is more tedious than entertaining, and his entreaties to Anakin to join the side of evil are circuitous and repetitive. ... But these are not, and should not be, enough to elevate Sith beyond passable entertainment into what none of the Star Wars films have been: a truly great movie. - Las Vegas Weekly
While many critics believed Revenge of the Sith was the best installment in George Lucas' Star Wars prequel trilogy, not everyone was on board with Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader, and most of the negative reviews reiterated Lucas' inability to conjure up tolerable dialogue. An interesting theme from many negative reviews, though, seems to be directed towards Star Wars fans, at times, instead of the movie itself, suggesting that critics shouldn't express their opinions for fear of receiving dozens of threatening e-mails (remember, the prequels released in the early 2000s). That's probably not the best way to start off a review.
What did YOU think of George Lucas' Star Wars prequel trilogy? Let us know in the comments!
