Setting the (Low) Bar

Two more days and The Force Awakens will finally be here. Not the myriad of TV spots, pop-up ads or products shilling the most tangential connection to the Force, but the REAL thing. Seems like its taken forever and no time at all for it to get here.

As part of the big lead-up to The Force Awakens I recently watched the Prequels. Yeah, Phantom Menace is bad, and Attack of the Clones is even worse, but what I realized is that I like Revenge of the Sith a lot less than I've had people convince me since it's release. I've been softened on it by fans claiming it's the Prequel that got it right. And until this past week, I mostly agreed. Well, after this last watch, Revenge of the Sith sucks too.

From Artoo's Three Stooges routine with the Super Battle Droids, to Anakin's agonizing over joining Palpatine to killing kids 5 minutes later, to the complete waste of everything that was good about Padmé... its not a good movie. Sure, the dogfight in the beginning is pretty cool, and Anakin and Obi-Wan's battle to the (almost) death is about as epic as it can be, but those are just sparkly glitter trying to hide the mess of a story underneath.

Yes, Sith is forced to spend its entire run time trying to make up for poor planning from the very start, and trying to atone for the sins of Menace and Clones, but its not enough. It hardly delivers anything I wanted from what I expected the Prequels to be.

So on this note, I put the Prequels to bed. This week we move forward with The Force Awakens, and for good or bad, it will be the next era of Star Wars. So in moving forward, I don't believe I'll ever watch the Prequels again. They're not good movies and I don't need to waste my time on them.

I claim Original Trilogy for life, and a MOST sincere good luck to the stewards of the brand moving forward. They've got a lot to live up to and a lot to make up for.

Yeah, the Joker inside me wants to see mad chaos from a horrible Star Wars movie this week, but ultimately I just want to fully enjoy Star Wars again. There's still hope in me... the Prequels haven't driven it from me fully.

-Gint