Even this guy wishes he wasn't in the films.
Back when the first Star Wars prequel was released, I watch it in the theater. Lacking an interest in film criticism, I couldn’t articulate why it was so bad. Like an abused wife, I naïvely returned to the theater for the next two, hopeful they’d be different. They weren’t. A friend of mine dismissed my criticisms: You just can’t appreciate things. You’re too critical. Why can’t you just like movies? Maybe he was right, but he thought Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within was a good film and Ace Ventura was a classic, so phhhhbbbbttttt.
The prequels are very, very bad. How bad? They’re full on we-revoke-your-film-school-degree bad. Lucas is an innovator, I’ll grant him that. If you gave Ed Wood a bunch of money, unlimited control, and access to competent actors, he, too, could’ve delivered the worst stories with the best special affects. Fortunately, as with Ed’s films, you can listen to people crack wise during the thing to keep your interest.
Last August, I wrote a post entitled Why Star Wars Sucks (Reason #421). What follows may be considered Reasons #422 through #8,000. I can’t take credit for it; the folks at Red Letter Media can. In a series of hour-long videos, a fictional reviewer by the name of Mr. Plinkett alternates through brutal skewering, basic film concepts, and dark-humor asides about serial murders. Don’t let that last one stop you.
The reviews themselves are superb tools for understanding how action, sci-fi, and fantasy films should be constructed. The Hero’s Journey is a recurring theme in films like these, and the original Star Wars flicks broadly conformed to that structure. The results are watchable. The prequels, on the other hand, have no structure or defined characters. There are no clear antagonists, or even a protagonist. There are no natural arcs, and don’t forget all that painful, clumsy dialogue.
The clearest, quickest way to get this across is found in a particular Plinkett excerpt. Click here, or the associated graphic, to give it a watch (the entire, uninterrupted review is here). In addition to the three prequels, Plinkett reviews Avatar and a mess of Next Gen Star Trek films. I’ve watched every review and feel as though I have a much richer appreciation for what does – and does not – work in sci fi and fantasy films.
Omitting some thoroughly inappropriate segments, these are superb tools for explaining how and why films work. It’s an education in reverse. I’ve had a lot of fun viewing some of these with my son. We have shared a number of a ha moments, never having grasped just how bad the things are. Plinkett won’t replace proper film criticism classes, but it’s a hell of a supplement. Let me put it this way: before watching these videos, my son never cared about lighting, character development, or blocking. Now he’s perceptually aware of them. Edutainment for the win.
