The prequel movies were below Godfather III quality. The kotor games and comics were superior.
__________________ There's a man goin' 'round takin' names.
An' he decides who to free and who to blame.
Everybody won't be treated all the same.
There'll be a golden ladder reaching down.
When the man comes around.
KotOR is one of the best EU elements and so I might concede that, but 2 and the comics don't compare to the prequels or the aforementioned prequel EU.
The story of the downfall of the Republic and Jedi is just a zillion times more interesting than another generic lawl war story between good wizards and bad ones.
That the prequels "in concept" could have been the best story is entirely irrelevant. In that regard they are similar to Kotor 2, in that a lot of potential was lost. But in Kotor 2's case the problem is not one of execution, but incompleteness. The game was not finished, and what good there is (a fairly effective, if not as unique as Nephthys thinks deconstruction of the RPG genre, a unique and compelling antagonist in Darth Traya and arguably Darth Nihilus, mai blind Miraluka waifu, etc) from an artistic standpoint leaves the prequels in the dust.
The prequels were handled pretty badly. The acting was wooden and pretty sub-par (probably due to shoddy direction), the fight scenes at times laughably bad (Palpatine vs. Mace and the B-Team), and the characters were not too compelling (as much as I like Dooku for example, the films never really explore his motivations IIRC, leaving him as just another generic Sith apprentice like Maul, if one that is supported by the best actor in the films, for example). The story itself was okay, but almost every moment was hampered by the aforementioned wooden acting.
Traya's goal to destroy the Force via wounds is pretty interesting, but as a villain neither she nor Nihilus remotely compare to Palpatine.
The story is, as I said, a zillion times better than that of any other Star Wars era, all of which are just generic tales of rawr smash fights. The prequels, on the other hand, tell the story of a Jedi order and Republic that doom themselves and its central villain is a hell of a lot more effective than any other. Its execution was flawed in that the acting was sub-par in some aspects, romantic dialogue was horrible, and the pacing wasn't optimal.
Everything about the prequels that wasn't Ian Mcdermaid sucked major ass.
__________________ There's a man goin' 'round takin' names.
An' he decides who to free and who to blame.
Everybody won't be treated all the same.
There'll be a golden ladder reaching down.
When the man comes around.
Even he failed to compel me or come off as particularly interesting.
Nemebro is pretty dead on. Tempest just thinks the story is better than it actually is because of his Palpatine boner. When the story is more about the "tragic" fall of an unlikeable, insufferable character who Lucas gives us no reason to actually connect with or root for, further marred by a terrible child performance, a brutally awful romance and a lot of other problems.
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Last edited by Nephthys on Nov 28th, 2014 at 02:01 AM
__________________ There's a man goin' 'round takin' names.
An' he decides who to free and who to blame.
Everybody won't be treated all the same.
There'll be a golden ladder reaching down.
When the man comes around.
Traya and arguably Nihilus are more unique in their goals, presentation, and motivations.
Palpatine's goal is to rule the worldthe galaxy, his motivation in the films is frankly unclear (and unlike a character like Johan Liebert from Monster this ambiguous motivation doesn't seem to contribute to his character or anything), and his presentation is as the archetypical evil overlord. Because that's basically what he is. He's an archetype.
Which made the entire experience not particularly enjoyable (unless you're like me and enjoy making fun of it). Which made the entire experience pretty bad.
You say the Jedi Order and the Republic doom themselves. I would agree. They doomed themselves by suffering under bad writing which made them fools (this is particularly bad in the case of the Jedi). This is partly why Palpatine was able to be so competent. Because everyone inexplicably treated Anakin like shit for some reason (you can be on the council but lol**** you we're not making you a massa), which made it easy for Palpatine to manipulate him. Or when Yoda basically told Anakin in no uncertain terms that he should shut the **** up and let the people he loved die.
See, the prequels aren't bad in spite of the fact that the story had the potential to be the best in the mythos, but because of it. There was so much wasted potential despite the anticipation for them that it was hard for longtime fans to not be very put off by it.
Me personally? I don't mind them that much, but then I was never as big a fan of the OT (maybe because I'm fairly young compared to some of the others who saw the trilogy). I'd take RotS over RotJ any day.
Thinking about it, Sidious' storyline is also marred by a myriad of issues, at times too stiff and dry and at others way too ****ing hammy to take remotely seriously. That scene with Jar Jar needed a laugh track, because it was a complete joke. The whole Windu scene is pretty terrible. "Do it!" is unintentionally funny. And unfortunately the plotline goes for subtlety, in the first two films at least, which doesn't really work because the surrounding movies are too boring for the audience to give enough of a shit to register it. Instead of horror at his rise, all I ever felt was a detached feeling that the movie was going for ominous. Sidious is fun when he's cackling madly and throwing lightning around. He's pretty dull in the first two movies imo, since all he gets to do is hide behind a hood and say ominous things in a low voice. And be Palpatine.
The interesting part about Palpatine is that, rather than try to conquer the worldthe galaxy at proverbial gunpoint, he instead manipulates those around him into surrendering absolute power. That's why I find that more interesting than your typical Tom, Sith & Harry who simply try RAWR SMASH their way into absolute power. They're boring whereas Palpatine's methods are fairly unique in mainstream cinema given his goal and actually successful.
The accusation of bad writing or incompetence of the heroes leveled at the heroes of the PT has been consistently debunked. The reason they failed to stop Sidious is that Sidious actually played an effective game and wasn't Obviously Evil in his attempts to secure power. The prologue to AOTC illustrates this quite nicely: his private goal is to foment galactic war and yet he takes public actions to obstruct the creation of a military (he mentions trying to delay the vote for the military creation act to acommodate its opposition). In other words, he goes out of his way to give his enemies no room to suspect him, even publicly obstructing his private goals.
So I'd need to see examples of where their incompetence came into play because pretty much everyone Neph and co. have ever tossed my way, I have conquered utterly.
No arguments here that the execution left something to be desired, but the actual storyline remains head and shoulders above that of any other Star Wars era.
BTW, I appreciate how levelheaded and reasonable you are about this. It's so easy to drive Neph to anger on this subject.