I just watched all the Star Wars movies again and the prequels and sequels are both bad for different reasons.
The Sequels have much better cinematography and effects. Them being shot on 35mm film and using actual sets instead of digital green screen Spy Kids bullshit aids them quite a lot. The prequels are just that: digital green screen Spy Kids bullshit. It looked bad in 2002 and it looks horrendous today.
The Sequels were made by good visual directors. Minus a few action scenes, George Lucas's directing is flat, boring, and repetitive.
I think that's about the only thing the sequels have that definitively trumps the prequels.
The prequels have better characters, better pacing (except for Episode 1, that's a boring movie), better music, and more memorable moments. I have already forgotten basically all of Episodes 8 and 9. Yes, they are better on technical visual levels, but those stories are POINTLESS and BORING. The Prequels did a great job at world building, making the Star Wars universe feel very real and deep, whereas the sequels just repeat everything the original trilogy did but worse. Most of all, the Prequels all felt like they were building to something grandiose and important, which they did. The Sequels had no plan, nothing grandiose, no payoff.
My rankings of the prequels and sequels mixed together:
Revenge of the Sith - Certainly the best prequel. Although there's room for improvement in every department, and it desperately needed to be filmed on sets instead of green screens, this one has the best performances, dialogue, writing, directing from Lucas, and action scenes of the prequels. It's the only prequel that feels like a fully satisfying movie. While I do think the film could be better and maybe more serious, it's certainly a very well-paced and entertaining action film. 7.5/10
Attack of the Clones - AWFUL CGI. I mean, AWFUL, AWFUL. So bad. And the romance scenes are horrible. But the central plot is pretty engaging and the action scenes are top notch. I find the first 70% of this movie to be mediocre at best but the last 20 always floors me. 5/10
The Last Jedi - The best sequel. Great actions scenes, but there's so much corny humor that they might as well list "comedy" as one of its genre tags. The plot is the worst element: it just feels like a bunch of B-plots with characters diverging and reconnecting, but their own plots don't feel important whatsoever. It also drags on for far too long. Overall, it feels like a 2.5 hour version of a TV episode where characters get separated and go on wacky side quests. But, the stuff with Luke is interesting and the climax is great. 5/10
The Phantom Menace - Really boring. Visually the best-looking prequel (it was shot on film and used real sets) but the plot is just...what are y'all doing? Where is this even going? Lot's of boring talking and crappy humor. Even cool stuff like the pod race goes on for way too long. But, again the action is great. It being boring is the worst part. 4/10
The Force Awakens - Visually good, but a poor man's remake of Episode 4. Mediocre characters, mediocre story, blatant retconning of previous events simply because the writer said so. It's not terrible, but why would ANYONE watch this if Episode 4 exists? 4/10
The Rise of Skywalker - Just complete nonsense. No plot (or 20 plots that keep changing), no interesting story arcs, no payoffs. Halfway though this 3-hour abomination I verbally shouted "where are we going with this?!??" and my roommates chimed "bro, it's been 6 years and we don't know!" I agree. They introduced all these pointless new characters who serve zero purpose to the plot, including the return of the Emperor for no discernible reason, and the movie barely tries to follow the events of the previous film. But hey, I liked the cinematography and some of the action. 3/10
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Aylmer (616)
6 days ago
I pretty much agree with everything you said but I'd say the "best" of the sequels is Force Awakens. It didn't close the narrative but at least made you think that the rest of the sequels would (and they didn't). It had some cool scenes and opened especially with a lot of promise (which it undid pretty quickly as it went along).
Last Jedi to me felt like a giant troll on the audience. A few of the fake-out laughs like the ship landing that turned out to be an iron steaming clothes confirmed that to me. The pointless addition of Laura Dern's character (who was awful) and Rose really sank things, plus the awful politicking over weapons sales on the gambling planet which was rolled into politicking over animal cruelty felt to me like it had no place in a Star Wars movie.
RISE I think was just glorious trash. It was entertaining in the theater but also just a throwaway experience that made no sense at all. All together the sequel trilogy turned out to be a giant mess.
The prequels were all utterly incompetent on a technical and story level, and baffling too because Lucas had so much control and all his resources poured into them. I look at them now as some giant "tech demo" for CGI in its relative infancy rather than actual movies, because they're all addle-brained and hard to follow. However, he was at least somewhat creative with them which the sequels failed to be. Unfortunately he disrespected his own characters to the point where it hurts the original trilogy (hard to take evil Darth Vader so seriously when we've seen him as a scrappy blond boy with a backpack, who ludicrously invented C3PO at age 8).
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