Nostalgia Critic: Top 11 GOOD Things from the Star Wars Prequels - General

This is interesting Yes, there are actually 11. [url]http://blip.tv/nostalgiacritic/nostalgia-critic-top-11-good-things-from-the-star-wars-prequels-6843780[/url]

I can definitely agree with #4.

At least the prequels gave Battlefront 2 a good story.

The Prequels gave us the excellent Clone Wars Cartoon and CG Series. [editline]15th April 2014[/editline] He mentions the CG, but there are some great miniatures in the PT as well. Most of the Podrace starting line and Stands were miniatures (Some of the pod racer engines were full sized models as well). The Utapau sink hole was a miniature. The Giant tree in the Kashyyk beach battle was a miniature.

i hate the acting in the prequels, and the story itself, even though the third one was veeery good, i cant say the story made a lot of sense, the whole love fear thing i found very simple to such mayor actions that were taken.

he's too right about evan mcgregor you can tell the guy must have watched a new hope over and over to deliver exactly the same thing and it works so well it's a shame the writing is so bad

I agree with a lot of this, especially the point about the Revenge of the Sith intro. I know it's all effects and Hollywood has effects coming out the ass now, but the opening 30 seconds of that movie was the high point of the prequel trilogy for me. The John Williams score and the tracking shot of two starfighters was just perfect. Then they start talking... Ewan McGregor was great, too. Even with the lamer lines, I really enjoyed him. Over the 3 movies, the thing I still like best is the soundtrack. William's score for the prequels was right up there with the original trilogy.

motherfucker barely even mentioned Grievous <3 that guy. Favorite Star Wars character

no mention of general Grevious :(

I'll give him the Revenge of the Sith intro, the podrace, the Emperor (hit or miss but mostly hit) and Ewan McGregor but the rest of these points are pretty poor in my opinion. The RedLetterMedia reviews say about everything that needs to be said about the prequels so I'm pretty much just repeating them, but sweeping backgrounds and effects are pointless if all they do is make the films feel like sterile video games. Yoda fighting was just awful and counting "Not having one of the least popular characters in cinematic history in your sequels" is hardly a good thing.

i agree with him about the acting and casting, but imho the action scenes largely sucked cos of the lack of character to them. the final fight from episode three is a good example cos it started out fairly cool and emotive, but it gets so overly elaborate and focused on looking epic that any kind of emotional investment in what's happening just completely burns off, and just like that the whole thing becomes dull as dishwater in spite of the crazy imagery and choreography. and every other fight scene is like that except without the cool introduction, there's just a whole lotta backflips and gimmicks with absolutely no relevance to the characters, and nothing interesting to them as a result. you care a lot more about the old man and the asthmatic cyborg trading lunges cos they're characters locked in a duel with relevance to both them and the overall plot. the actors get an opportunity to act rather than test their frontflipping capabilities, and that's what you want to see cos it makes you care about what happens.

[QUOTE=Cone;44556601]i agree with him about the acting and casting, but imho the action scenes largely sucked cos of the lack of character to them. the final fight from episode three is a good example cos it started out fairly cool and emotive, but it gets so overly elaborate and focused on looking epic that any kind of emotional investment in what's happening just completely burns off, and just like that the whole thing becomes dull as dishwater in spite of the crazy imagery and choreography. and every other fight scene is like that except without the cool introduction, there's just a whole lotta backflips and gimmicks with absolutely no relevance to the characters, and nothing interesting to them as a result. you care a lot more about the old man and the asthmatic cyborg trading lunges cos they're characters locked in a duel with relevance to both them and the overall plot. the actors get an opportunity to act rather than test their frontflipping capabilities, and that's what you want to see cos it makes you care about what happens.[/QUOTE] To be fair, the fight scenes take a whole new meaning if you're invested in the deeper pits of the lore. Once you're aware of the fact that each jedi has a specific fighting style that he follows, you can really read the combat much easier. Obi Wan is literally the master of one of (if not the most) defensive saber styles in the universe, which is a stark contrast to Anakin being one of the masters of the most full-frontal aggression based stances. The final fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan is really neat to watch if only for the -way- they fight, even the 'high ground' scene at the very end makes sense, seeing as Obi-Wans style is all about defense and advantages. The instant verticality comes into play, Obi-Wan is one of the deadliest warriors in the universe.

Jar Jar Binks was the best part of the prequels.

At least the prequals gave out Star Wars: Episode I Racer

he likes the prancing and puts it at number 11? srsly?

the only good thing that came out of the prequels is the cartoon network clone wars (2003) and republic commando

The Episode 3 fight is a pretty cool display of swordplay but the Episode 1 fight is sequenced really badly when you break it down

I completely disagree with the idea that the lightsaber fights were better in the prequels. In the original trilogy the lightsaber fights were tense, one wrong move and your opponent could kill you, the lightsabers were powerful weapons which posed as much a threat to their wielder as to their opponent. When lightsabers clashed in the original trilogy it was light taps, trying to knock your foes weapon enough to the side that you can strike without also leaving yourself exposed. And then at the end when Luke goes full on psycho all finesse is abandoned and he just wails on Darth Vader. In the prequels it's all flash and pomp, flipping around like fucking idiots, never even trying to hit your opponent just clashing blades endlessly. And the fight scenes lasted so fucking long, especially in Episode 3 at the end. Another thing is in the originals the lightsabers almost only came out in Jedi on Jedi duels, a lot of the time Luke used a blaster because it was more practical and he only stopped once he started training with Darth Vader, even after his training with Yoda he kept a blaster on hand.

for those not interested in watching the whole thing, the breakdown is: 11: the "cool" lightsaber fights that are more actiony 10: less jar jar as time goes on 9: yoda fighting 8: a scene where obi uses the jedi mind trick 7: padme revealing she's pregnant 6: hayden christensen 5: intro to revenge of the sith 4: ewan mcgregor 3: the emperor 2: "the different worlds" 1: the opera house scene i think it's sorta cheap that he went with specific scenes and labelled them as "good things" - they're not really themes or significant, just parts of the performance that aren't bad - minus his #1, that one was actually quite interesting from a world building perspective and i agree with him. while yeah, the pregnant scene was much better than most of the rest of the film, it doesn't really do anything that makes it significant in the wider franchise. same with the intro of revenge of the sith, and his throwaway scene with the jedi mind trick. the only things that I really think are significant in any sort of real way are 10, 4, 2, and 1. he argues each of those pretty well.

[QUOTE=Clovernoodle;44556563]motherfucker barely even mentioned Grievous <3 that guy. Favorite Star Wars character[/QUOTE]I love General Grievous, but using him in this list would be cheating. All of the really nice stuff for him is in external stories, while in the actual movies he was a crippled Snidely Whiplash who could have been cleanly removed from the plot entirely and lost his most interesting trump card literally seconds after revealing it.

Most of his points were actually reasons I hated the prequels to begin with. If you really think yoda fighting is cool or are really impressed by "big different worlds" then you sound like someone who looks at every thing from the surface.

I didn't think the prequel was bad at all.

The only thing I agree with on this list is the Emperor, because he's one of the few actual characters in the series. Like, he actually has some emotion, motivation, he takes action, etc.

[QUOTE=Tudd;44556982]Most of his points were actually reasons I hated the prequels to begin with. If you really think yoda fighting is cool or are really impressed by "big different worlds" then you sound like someone who looks at every thing from the surface.[/QUOTE] I don't really get why everyone freaks out over the Yoda thing. Arguably the most powerful jedi in the galaxy is gonna fight fucking nutso. Everyone's like "aw man well he doesnt even use the force really he just flips" but it's very obvious that every move he makes is assisted by the force, he's literally channeling it in order to make every more far more dangerous or unexpected. I know Yoda was a wise old sage who didn't use his saber in the original films, but you need to understand that almost all of the combat with lightsabers was done between a bunch of old fucks in the originals. I think NC was right on the head when it came to the little joke scene from A New Hope where Vader and Ben reminisce about the Mustafa battle. They're old as fuck so obviously they're all going to adopt much less energetic fighting styles.

[QUOTE=Clovernoodle;44556563]motherfucker barely even mentioned Grievous <3 that guy. Favorite Star Wars character[/QUOTE] Why? He was kinda just thrown in there, and there wasn't enough to know about him to even care about this character. It was just like "he's an evil coughing robot." And don't bring up EU stuff because this is in the context of just the films.

No one even mentions Darth Maul, dude was a badass

wow I always heard everyone say the Opera scene sucked, neat seeing a different point of view on it.

[QUOTE=Tudd;44556982]Most of his points were actually reasons I hated the prequels to begin with. If you really think yoda fighting is cool or are really impressed by "big different worlds" then you sound like someone who looks at every thing from the surface.[/QUOTE] idk showing a large diversity in locations definitely adds a level to the universe that wasn't there before - but it goes both ways in that way. it makes it feel more fantastical (and alongside #1 that fits) but at the same time what made the original trilogy so great is that it felt real and relatable even though it was fantasy. so creating those new worlds in a way that the audience can see definitely has an impact - whether or not you think it's a good impact is up to you, but it definitely has an effect personally i really disliked that it was mostly all cgi, but there were a couple bits that were good. i actually quite liked the construction of some of the worlds

[QUOTE=Mio Akiyama;44557161]No one even mentions Darth Maul, dude was a badass[/QUOTE] How was he a badass? He was a cardboard cutout of a character. He had no motivations and he didn't even say or do anything with a purpose. We knew almost nothing about the whole plot the emperor was hatching, so his actions were almost incomprehensible and they had no consequence. The only "badass" thing about him was that he wore a black cloak and had a red face.

oh and I got a lot of fun out of the prequels, I remember sitting in a theater watching Episode III thinking "wow, I'm actually watching a Star Wars movie in a theater, and I won't ever get to experience this again". well, guess I get another go with the sequels.