I started off wanting to be a screenwriter, the pursuit of which taught me story structure better than I ever could have learned otherwise. Now that I've been a structural editor to indie authors for several years, and having been a fly on the wall to how some major publishing houses operate, I have some insight into how stories can go wrong, and how they can be righted, that most people don't.
So when I say that I have never much liked the Star Wars prequels, but have always admired them, I hope that will be understood precisely.
At some point, some academic should do a study of the cultural reaction to the prequels, because having lived through it, and the shifts it took (although I was living in China by the time the third one came out, so I only saw the cultural reaction to that one at a distance), it feels like it would be a fascinating study in how "the consensus" is never particularly stable, and how eloquent individuals with visceral reactions can push the consensus one way or another.
When The Phantom Menace released, initial institutional reactions were ecstatic. Ron Howard was quoted the week before release as saying it was amazing and unlike anything ever seen on screen before. Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars because he had never seen a spherical senate chamber before. (No, seriously.)
Once the public saw it, there was a fair bit of backlash, mostly centering on Jar Jar Binks. In truth, Jar Jar was just the most obvious and convenient target for ire over a story poorly told.
Then Attack of the Clones, which was greeted more tepidly, because it was expected to be like The Empire Strikes Back, the best of the three, and... well, now it's considered (unfairly, in my view) as the worst. But do note that Lucas scaled Jar Jar back quite a bit, and made him into a political dupe, advancing evil by trying to do good. Lucas's relationship with fandom has always been somewhat strained, but the man listened to his fans.
When Revenge of the Sith released, it was seen as the best of the three, albeit that was by that time very left-handed praise, and people wondered why it wasn't the first in the trilogy, rather than the last. But overall, the prequels were viewed as a massive mistake, and as sullying the Star Wars legacy.
So before I get to the praise, let me be clear: This backlash and disdain was, to an extent, merited. The measure of that extent is arguable, but I am not here to claim that they are objectively good movies.
They are not. Dramatically, they are mostly inert. In terms of storytelling, they are deeply flawed. The actors are largely adrift, lacking both solid scripting and a director who is good with actors. There is quite a lot to criticize in the prequels, and over the years, most or all of it has been criticized.
But for all their flaws, and I admit the flaws are legion, they still have things that current Hollywood lacks.
To begin with, they tell a new story, rather than rehashing some previous movie beat for beat. Certainly, there are parallels throughout the trilogy to the original trilogy. But those parallels are (at least mostly) not lazy, but done with intent and purpose within the story, rather than with the intent of supplying memberberries (gods I hate that term!) for "stupid flyover people".
Secondly, the new story that the prequels told was enormously ambitious. George Lucas, whatever his faults as a screenwriter, tried to tell the story not only of the turning of one man to the dark side, but also to dramatize the fall of a republic into tyranny, in parallel. He didn't do it mindlessly, either. There are deliberate parallels to many different historical contexts, from the Roman Republic to the Dutch East India Company to the First Opium War to colonial India. These parallels are deliberate, which you can tell from many, many choices made during production, such as the architecture and costuming of Naboo, which has obvious influences from both India and China.
Is that ambition elegantly or artfully executed? In terms of storytelling, no — I would say that in terms of set design, art direction, and other ways, it is achieved pretty well — but wouldn't you prefer ambition marred by clumsiness over slick technical brilliance with no soul behind it?
Thirdly, even taking into account that Lucas listened to and responded to fans, he told the story he wanted to tell, rather than treating it as a mix and match set of "elements" that were "commercially appealing" simply to garner more box office money.
One of the simplest ways to see how superior the prequels are to the DisneyWars trilogy is simply to compare what they are about.
The Phantom Menace is about the decay of a republic beginning to come to light, and (less engagingly) of a slave boy beginning the journey to become a jedi knight.
Attack of the Clones is about the republic's decay being manipulated and exploited, and the young jedi's growing disillusionment with the supposed wisdom of his superiors.
Revenge of the Sith is about the fall of both man and republic, the moments when decisions are made that are irrevocable, and unforgivable.
The Force Awakens is about mirroring A New Hope as closely as possible, without annoying fans too much. If you squint and turn your head to one side and ignore all the other threads that have nothing to do with this, you could also say it's about how far an imperfect parent will go to support a wayward child.
The Last Jedi was about destroying the chance at telling a three part story, and also figuring out what fans wanted, and deliberately doing the opposite in every way possible. Internal to the story, there is nothing. Sure, you can point to scenes that attempt to give the movie a theme ("We're going to win this war not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love!"), but they connect to nothing else in the story, and don't even make sense on their own terms.
Rise of Palpatine was purely about trying to salvage something from the wreckage that the second movie left behind, and fooling audiences into thinking it meant something.
(Also, apropos of that title, any time "Rise" or "Rises" or "Rising" is used in a Hollywood title, for the past twenty-five years, it's a sign that there are serious story problems with the movie. This was obvious so long ago that the direct-to-DVD sequel to Van Wilder made fun of it, for gosh sakes! The only movie that was not a complete creative blackhole that used it was The Dark Knight Rises, and even that one, ambitious as it was, had definite problems.)
If you are curious to see how even The Phantom Menace — my vote for worst of the prequels — has a decent movie lurking within it, track down and download the fan edit of it, The Phantom Edit. Even to someone like me, who had a decades-old bad taste in his mouth about that one in particular, it's eye-opening.
But even if you don't, at least realize that the prequels had substance to them, however inartfully executed and awkward they were. They were by no means perfect, but George Lucas aimed high. Which is more than Disney ever even thought of attempting.
