Can we appreciate Revenge of the Sith cinematography for 2 seconds?

Reminder that it’s really cool, and RotS is the best of the prequel films IMO. How about you? Which of the prequels is your favourite?

Reply 1

thepunmaster.e

17

Agreed, it’s definitely the best out of the prequels

Reply 2

Trinculo

21

I have a soft spot for Phantom Menace. It's all about harking back to that "more civilised time" that Obi Wan talks about when he first meets Luke - like how lush and ostentatious Naboo is compared not just to Tatooine, but to everything that comes afterwards. How the ships and clothing of the time contrast to the everything that comes later on. Also, the Trade Federation are just hysterical.

If you mean *any* prequel - then Rogue One without a doubt. For me it is the best and cleverest Star Wars fillm of all by a country mile.

Reply 3

username612415

21

It's definitely the high point of the prequel series, it still has a lot of the flaws of most of the trilogy like god-awful dialogue, but it's the most watchable. Hell, I'd watch ROTS over The Last Jedi any day of the week.

Reply 4

Trinculo

21

With Star Wars, context is everything, and that context keeps changing.

For quite a time, the prequels were all the anti-Christ, but in the past few years people are coming back to them. Heyden Christiansen is getting a bit more slack for his performances - which were pretty much to go out and play a really messed-up angsty teenager who has unlimited power. Some of it is now just memes and really quite cool - like "I don't like sand" or "I'll try spinning - that's a good trick".

For ages, people had digs at RotJ and called it Muppets in Space - and RotJ has some terrible bits which are never treated as harshly as the newer movies - for example for the longest time fans have moaned about how Boba Fett gets a crappy death not befitting the hardest bounty hunter in the galaxy - well fast forward 35 years and Jon Favreau has fixed all that.

The main problem they had with the last 3 movies is that they didn't know where they wanted to end up - and they just turned into essentially 3 remakes and as many nostalgia trips and easter eggs as they could cram in. With the prequels - they knew exactly where they had to end up - which ultimately was Anakin becoming Darth Vader.

I have a strong feeling that in time, and with more high-budget well-produced and well-written things like Mandalorian, people will come full circle on the Rey movies - simply because there is so much room to fix things - then in years to come, fans will rewatch the Rey movies in the context of the retcons and fixes and it will all look better. This has already started to happen with Rise of Skywalker - fans moaned like crazy about Rey being a Mary Sue character and everything pointed to her being some relative of Luke or Leia (handily casting Daisy Ridley who does look like she's Natalie Portman's neice or something) - and then in the last film it's all explained. Give it 10 years and a couple of mini-series and I think people will have fully forgiven them.

Reply 5

thepunmaster.e

17

Original post by Trinculo

I have a soft spot for Phantom Menace. It's all about harking back to that "more civilised time" that Obi Wan talks about when he first meets Luke - like how lush and ostentatious Naboo is compared not just to Tatooine, but to everything that comes afterwards. How the ships and clothing of the time contrast to the everything that comes later on. Also, the Trade Federation are just hysterical.

If you mean *any* prequel - then Rogue One without a doubt. For me it is the best and cleverest Star Wars fillm of all by a country mile.

Agreed, I absoultly loved Rouge One. Though I probably like the prequels as I watched the series in chronological order so it was really cool for me to watch the original series knowing the backstory. I can understand why people who were alive at the time they came out though didn't like them

Reply 6

Trinculo

21

Original post by thepunmaster.e

Agreed, I absoultly loved Rouge One. Though I probably like the prequels as I watched the series in chronological order so it was really cool for me to watch the original series knowing the backstory. I can understand why people who were alive at the time they came out though didn't like them

I think it might even go the other way, and things that were put in by the prequels (that fans didn't like) will end up being key plot points going forward. One of the things that was most unpopular in Phantom Menace (JarJar notwithstanding) was the mediclorians. This looks like it might be the underpinning plot to the Mandalorian.

The thing with Star Wars films is - they haven't done anything that can't be undone. Han, Leia and Luke are all dead - but realistically how many more films could the actors have done? If you want examples of scifi series making franchise-killing sequels - Alien 3 is probablly the peak of that- they've been trying to undo it ever since and haven't managed in 4 films.

Reply 7

WhovianPigeon

OP

12

Original post by thepunmaster.e

Agreed, it’s definitely the best out of the prequels

Reply 8

WhovianPigeon

OP

12

Original post by Trinculo

I have a soft spot for Phantom Menace. It's all about harking back to that "more civilised time" that Obi Wan talks about when he first meets Luke - like how lush and ostentatious Naboo is compared not just to Tatooine, but to everything that comes afterwards. How the ships and clothing of the time contrast to the everything that comes later on. Also, the Trade Federation are just hysterical.

If you mean *any* prequel - then Rogue One without a doubt. For me it is the best and cleverest Star Wars fillm of all by a country mile.

Yeah, Phantom Menace is good, and I agree with you about Rogue One. I did mean the late 90s/early 00s prequel series though. But Revenge is definitely my personal favourite (though I can definitely see where you’re coming from). 😛

OP

Haha, yes.

I agree Revenge Of The Sith is the best of the three prequels. They got progressively better between Phantom Menace and Revenge Of The Sith. Hayden Christensen's acting much better in this one than the hamming and moping he did in Attack Of The Clones. The stakes felt much higher and the final act of the film actually draws you in once you see Order 66 being activated, Jedi Knights being slaughtered, the birth of Darth Vader and Obi-Wan hiding the babies etc. I would have loved to see an even darker version, maybe even R-rated like a Director's Cut, but Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi were probably the last times we really saw the series go dark and scary. They had an opportunity to go really deep and twisted had they made Duel Of The Fates into Episode IX, but instead we got Rise Of Skywalker which many would argue was a disappointment.