[Galemp]

Very well researched and analyzed. This guy knows his storytelling techniques, and he's picked apart the movie mercilessly without being pedantic or leaning on the obvious flaws that have been hashed to death already (Jar-Jar, Midichlorians.)

[StarSlayer]

Very well researched and analyzed. This guy knows his storytelling techniques, and he's picked apart the movie mercilessly without being pedantic or leaning on the obvious flaws that have been hashed to death already (Jar-Jar, Midichlorians.)

It's actually funny in a way, but Jar Jar and Midichlorians generally soak up all the flak when, as this review shows quite clearly, the entire film from soup to nuts if a complete mess.

[Thaeris]

I watched this yesterday during the off-hours at school.

Well worth the watch. 

[TopAce]

Another Star Wars hater who wants to achieve some online notoriety.

He surely knows much about storytelling, but he has no clue about Star Wars.

[Thaeris]

Are you actually supporting the "new" trilogy?

...Don't you have a soul?

[Herra Tohtori]

The problem is, the prequels could and should have been tons better. The few references to the backstory given in the movies suggest a much more interesting story than what happens in the prequels.

"You fought in the Clone Wars?"
"Yes. I was once a Jedi Knight, the same as your father."

...then it gets reduced to an off-screen conflict apart from the beginning and the end.

It's not even so much that the plot that sucks, it's how it's delivered. Phantom Menace is just the worst offender, but the others share a lot of the same faults - uninteresting characters (unbelievable achievement considering source material), scattered storytelling etc.

I wonder if Lucas would consent to a partial franchise reset, sort of like the recent Start Trek [sic]... except in a way that would make sense. No time traveling plox.

[Mongoose]

Another Star Wars hater who wants to achieve some online notoriety.

He surely knows much about storytelling, but he has no clue about Star Wars.

Obviously he does, as he was able to reference everything that made the original trilogy great yet was completely absent in the new films.

[Flipside]

As an aside, didn't the original spelunk state that Threepio was over a hundred years old? I'm sure I read that somewhere, but can't remember where.

[StarSlayer]

"You fought in the Clone Wars?"
"Yes. I was once a Jedi Knight, the same as your father."

The movies and especially Zhan's Thrawn Trilogy set the expectation in me that the Clone Wars revolved around Clone Masters and their armies of possibly Force driven insane clones trying to take over the galaxy.  That explained nicely why there wasn't much mention of clones in the later half of of Star Wars and that it seemed like a pretty taboo subject.  That certainly seemed more like the type of galaxy ruining conflict that weakened the Jedi Order and paved the way for the Empire, as opposed to an army of disposable genetic slaves vs an army of disposable robots.

[Grizzly]

As an aside, didn't the original spelunk state that Threepio was over a hundred years old? I'm sure I read that somewhere, but can't remember where.

Well, I think Anakin build him from scratch...

[NGTM-1R]

Another Star Wars hater who wants to achieve some online notoriety.

He surely knows much about storytelling, but he has no clue about Star Wars.

Or you don't. I'm leaning towards you.

[TopAce]

Okay, for example he mentions that the droid in the intro shouldn't know that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are Jedi. Both of them are wearing widely recognizable Jedi apparel. And there's the thing with "Jedi Knight". It doesn't refer to the title of Jedi Knight only, but to Jedi overall, so there's nothing wrong with the opening crawl.

[Herra Tohtori]

As an aside, didn't the original spelunk state that Threepio was over a hundred years old? I'm sure I read that somewhere, but can't remember where.

Well, I think Anakin build him from scratch...

He had to have gotten the behavioural core from somewhere though. I can't suspend my disbelief enough to believe that Anakin could have programmed it all from scratch, no matter how much of a mechanical genius he might have been.

Besides he was given a memory wipe after being put into Captain Antilles' service. It would believe to be however old it's personality matrix would claim it to be. R2-D2 wasn't memory wiped, significantly enough. As far as we know, R2-D2 has gone without a memory wipe since we are introduced to it.

There are high probabilities it is in late stages of rampancy by the time of Return.

[Col. Fishguts]

Very well researched and analyzed. This guy knows his storytelling techniques, and he's picked apart the movie mercilessly without being pedantic or leaning on the obvious flaws that have been hashed to death already (Jar-Jar, Midichlorians.)

QFT.

GL himself often downplays critiques on the prequels as the rambling of fanbois who don't like them because they are different from the original trilogy, or some similar argument.
But as this review shows so nicely, the prequels fail at some very basic principles of story telling and characterization. Of course not every movie has to follow the same formula to be good, but then it has to offer something else to make the story work.
If one were judge any of the prequel movies on its own (in a parallel universe, where the rest of Star Wars wouldn't exist)... one would always come to the conclusion that it's garbage trying hide its shortcomings behind fancy special effects.

[Mongoose]

Okay, for example he mentions that the droid in the intro shouldn't know that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are Jedi. Both of them are wearing widely recognizable Jedi apparel. And there's the thing with "Jedi Knight". It doesn't refer to the title of Jedi Knight only, but to Jedi overall, so there's nothing wrong with the opening crawl.

So there was no way they could have, say, just bought those from Robes-R-Us?

The part that really floored me about this was that old quote from Lucas saying something like, "Special effects are just a tool that can be used to tell a good story."  So much for memory, eh George?

[BloodEagle]

Okay, for example he mentions that the droid in the intro shouldn't know that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are Jedi. Both of them are wearing widely recognizable Jedi apparel. And there's the thing with "Jedi Knight". It doesn't refer to the title of Jedi Knight only, but to Jedi overall, so there's nothing wrong with the opening crawl.

So there was no way they could have, say, just bought those from Robes-R-Us?

That place has terrible service.

[Lucika]

Okay, for example he mentions that the droid in the intro shouldn't know that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are Jedi. Both of them are wearing widely recognizable Jedi apparel. And there's the thing with "Jedi Knight". It doesn't refer to the title of Jedi Knight only, but to Jedi overall, so there's nothing wrong with the opening crawl.

So there was no way they could have, say, just bought those from Robes-R-Us?

That place has terrible service.

Yeah. Credits won't do fine for them.

[Thaeris]

Okay, for example he mentions that the droid in the intro shouldn't know that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are Jedi. Both of them are wearing widely recognizable Jedi apparel. And there's the thing with "Jedi Knight". It doesn't refer to the title of Jedi Knight only, but to Jedi overall, so there's nothing wrong with the opening crawl.

So there was no way they could have, say, just bought those from Robes-R-Us?

That place has terrible service.

Yeah. Credits won't do fine for them.

Despite the terrible service, I really do appreciate a chain that can make a name for itself in the robe business. After all, if you want your enigmatic organization to be respected or aknowledged, the bath robe you bought at JC Penny just isn't going to cut it. So, some place where you can get a real robe is in fact very novel indeed... 

[StarSlayer]

Okay, for example he mentions that the droid in the intro shouldn't know that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are Jedi. Both of them are wearing widely recognizable Jedi apparel. And there's the thing with "Jedi Knight". It doesn't refer to the title of Jedi Knight only, but to Jedi overall, so there's nothing wrong with the opening crawl.

So there was no way they could have, say, just bought those from Robes-R-Us?

If hooded robes automatically denoted Jedi you wonder who the Neomodians thought they were talking to?  Seriously if your evidence for the reviewer not knowing "about Star Wars" (which denotes a deep misunderstanding of the soul of the universe as opposed to minutia) hinges on nit picking about uniforms then you're really not bringing anything to the table to prove the review wrong.

[zookeeper]

As much I agree about TPM sucking and that most of the things the guy listed don't indeed make any sense, it's not like there wasn't just as many things in any of the OT movies which made about equally little sense.