A new documentary is challenging Star Wars fans to unlearn what they have learned about the awful prequels that ruined our childhoods and stole our innocence about future Star Wars films.
Not that I’m bitter.
Anyway, a handful of prequels fans decided a few years ago to crowdfund The Prequels Strike Back, a documentary that is supposed to give people a fresh new perspective on The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, based on scholarly commentary from no less than arts expert Camille Paglia and Jonathan Young, a Joseph Campbell scholar.
The final film, due out September 14 on Amazon Prime and in select theaters the following month, now has an official trailer.
At least one of the film’s experts argues that we only hate the prequels in memory, and that fans have altered their perception of the movie over time, largely because the zeitgeist considers the movies to be bad. They contend that, like in politics and food preferences, we’ve been conditioned to find ourselves polarized on the topic of Anakin Skywalker’s half-hour pod race, and Natalie Portman’s wooden acting.
Another critic argues that popular myths about the franchise color our perception of the movies because its been so long since anyone’s actually seen them. For instance, a top complaint about the movies is that they “were overly reliant on computer-generated special effects.” Turns out, compared to contemporary movies of their time, they’re actually pretty well balanced.
Generally, the thesis of the documentary is this: If we were to go back to the way we felt after waiting hours, if not days and weeks, in line to see the movie—or, for that matter, viewed the movies again, in the context of our adulthood and later sequels—we might be kinder.
I’m not so sure.
Like a lot of hardcore Star Wars fans, I re-watched the prequels before returning to the theater for The Force Awakens, and frankly, they’re as bad as I remember them to be—though at the time, I do remember trying to feel positive about the movies I’d waited such a long time to see.
The second one can’t be worse than the first one, I thought.
Jar-Jar Binks is an achievement of modern film-making!
C-Span is so much better with aliens!
The outfits are cute…?
On repeat viewings, we now use the “Machete” method, carving out the Phantom Menace entirely, watching A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back first, and then pretending Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith are flash-backs, subject to the fading memory of an elderly and regretful Darth Vader.
Don’t get me wrong: There are bits and pieces of the prequels I do like. The lightsaber battles were epic. Coruscant was exactly as I envisioned it, having gleaned most of my mind’s picture of it from later Star Wars novels in the now-defunct extended universe. The landscapes were beautiful. And Darth Vader’s first moments were perfect, and not just because I was personally rooting for the lava to completely engulf Hayden Christensen.
And I think the Sith ultimately won out—the Force Awakens ultimately benefits from the prequels’ discussion of how the dark and light sides of the Force balance the story’s universe. Anakin Skywalker’s transformation is seen as necessary, the way Luke’s becomes in the original trilogy; the trilogy of sequels will ultimately establish a generational Force balance of its own, bridging the continuity gap between the three sets of films.
I’m a subscriber to the theory that the distance between what George Lucas could have done with his existing source material and what he ended up doing ultimately caused the rift between Lucasfilm and its fans. The beloved fundamentals of Star Wars lore are right there for the taking, and Lucas made, essentially, a vanity project. Edited for extraneous content and distilled down to its central battle for the soul of Anakin Skywalker, it sets the stage for an endless battle between the Jedi and the Sith, and an endless journey for talented souls it engulfs and forces to choose sides.
Anakin becomes a Sith to balance the power of the Jedi. Luke becomes a Jedi to balance the power of the Sith. Luke’s nephew tries to become a Sith to balance a Jedi that no longer exist, only to find himself tormented by his choice. The Force Awakens‘s force-strong character Rey has a wealth of possible futures, based solely on this significant story line alone.
But that doesn’t make the prequels good. So it remains to be seen whether this documentary can fully rehabilitate Lucas’s most notable achievement—and most notable disaster—in the eyes of millions of Star Wars fans.
