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I think there’s a difference between how they were hated and what parts people liked.
The prequels people hate because Jar-Jar, and some other comic relief characters, were annoying, and also (especially episode 1) how slow they can be. Overall, the stories were liked I think.
The sequels people like for the action and entertainment, but you totally have to ignore the story for them to not fall apart. It constantly contradicts itself (and the existing lessons, like the OP) and only works to weaken the universe.
Basically, their opposites to each other. I think the difference is people can come to enjoy the world of the prequels and get past the bad bits (or skip them), but the analysis and growing recognition of the failures of the sequels will only get larger with time as we spend more time with them.
Episode 1 is slow?! It starts with jedis being betrayed by the trade federation, escaping the ship and going to naboo, rescuing jarjar and meeting the gungans, crossing the planet’s core to get to Theed, rescuing Padmé and escaping to tatooine, winning the podrace and going to coruscant, then finally returning to naboo to end the invasion of the trade federation, all in one film. How can it be more packed with action and events? Certainly more action and event packed than Luke spending 1h of the film in a swamp
Good point. I agree, but that opening trade negotiations scene is always brought up as being really slow. I’ve always thought it was dumb, but I’ve heard it said so I included it.
The sequels people like for the action and entertainment
I have the same feeling but for prequels.
I never took Star Wars very seriously and I always see the story and lore as being a fun adventure. But the problem with the sequels is that it doesn’t have the direction and vision. I don’t know about the others, but for me that made the sequels not click.
It’s not just Jar-Jar. The amount of CG and green screen was off-putting given how good Lucas was at practical effects, and those more modern techniques have aged much worse in a much shorter time frame. The movies may be slow, but the action sequences are actually quite long, drawn out, and pointless (the third act of Attack of the Clones is especially bad). The fight choreography was also extremely different, with the simple, grounded light saber fights being replaced with silly back-flips and summersaults.
There are also odd story elements that seem to contradict the OT; why did Obi-Wan say Yoda trained him? How did the Jedi go from being a powerful peace-keeping force known throughout the galaxy to a myth in 20 years? Why did Leah claim she could remember her mother? (I’m sure Lucas came up with explanations for these things, but they still stand out.) All in all, they are a huge tone-shift from their predecessors, in both storytelling and filmmaking.
In contrast, the sequel films are able to emulate the original trilogy much more faithfully in terms of practical effects and set design. The real problem was, where Lucas over-developed his prequel trilogy for 30 years, Disney under-developed their sequels, with no plan for where the story should go. Abrahams created a basic retread of the first film, Johnson threw everything out in the second, and the third film was just desperately trying to write itself out of a corner. Those movies had no idea where they wanted to go, so they went nowhere.
