Why Star Wars Prequels Failed?

The Star Wars Prequels comprised the first three episodes of the Skywalker Saga: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith.

The prequels are often the lowest-ranked Star Wars films for varying reasons. And fans who grew up watching the Original Trilogy are highly critical of them.

The main factor that made the Star Wars Prequels so bad was a lack of creative character storylines in the three films. Fans also criticized predictable and bland plots, especially with The Phandom Menace; the Empire’s young age; and the presence of midi-chlorians. 

What Made the Star Wars Prequels So Bad?

Every movie depicts a story, and a story is filled with compelling characters and plot elements. You may have seen an interesting cast of characters, but their storylines in the Star Wars Prequels fell short.

One major downside with the Prequels is that too much character development stopped abruptly, which left audiences without a sense of satisfaction.

This is different from the Original Trilogy and the Sequel Trilogy, where the main characters like Luke Skywalker and Rey saw their characters fulfill their arcs from nobodies to Jedi. We also saw similar arcs with Darth Vader, Han Solo, Leia Organa, and Kylo Ren, among others.

In the Prequel Trilogy, this wasn’t there. Mace Windu’s character barely grew. The same lack of growth was also prevalent with C-3PO and R2-D2, while Count Dooku’s character abruptly entered and exited the trilogy, though he does have a compelling arc in The Clone Wars.

Neither Obi-Wan nor Anakin were the same characters at the end of the Prequel Trilogy, and it gave them both an interesting character arc.

Palaptine’s arc is also regarded as an interesting one, given his rise from Senator in The Phantom Menace to Chancellor in Attack of the Clones before he claimed the title of Emperor in Revenge of the Sith.

This redeemed the Prequels to a degree, but with such a large cast of characters, the overall development fell short.

Poor Plot Points

Many fans criticized The Phantom Menace for being a movie told over a trade dispute, which few fans found interesting. We saw little of the Clone Wars until the TV series debuted in 2008, and Revenge of the Sith wasn’t as emotionally charged as marketed.

Then there was the predictability of it all. One disadvantage with making a prequel series after a set of sequels is that audiences already know what’s going to happen. Yet they could have provided us with some shock value, and there was none of it in the Prequel Trilogy.

Take the lightsaber duels between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda vs. Palpatine. We knew what was going to happen, and that took away the suspenseful nature of each. Obi-Wan and Yoda went into exile, Vader got his suit, and Palpatine got his Death Star.

Why Don’t Fans Like the Star Wars Prequels?

Thanks to the predictability and overall lack of character development, many Star Wars fans did not enjoy the Star Wars Prequels. Some went beyond the flat character development and storylines and looked at the plot overall, from the Prequel Trilogy to the Original Trilogy.

Old school fans loved the mystery behind the Star Wars galaxy, and it allowed fans to concoct their own theories about what gave the even more mysterious Jedi Order their powers.

The answer in the Prequel Trilogy? Microorganisms called midi-chlorians. Just about as anticlimactic as a movie about a trade dispute.

When you watch the Original Trilogy first, you also get the idea that the Empire was this Goliath of an organization so big, powerful, and mysterious that no one could possibly defeat it.

It seemed equivalent to real world empires like the Roman Empire, which lasted for 1,500 years, or the British Empire (1497-1997). Instead, the Prequel Trilogy told us the Empire was founded in 19 BBY, a big letdown for fans that grew up on the Original Trilogy.

The Prequel Trilogy may have been more entertaining had it depicted something like the Jedi Order constantly warring with the Galactic Empire in an attempt to restore a long-lost Republic.

And perhaps the Clone Wars could have been one of those many attempts that ended with Order 66 and the Jedi’s extinction. While the Empire was powerful, it was also short-lived, lasting for 23 years (19 BBY to 4 ABY).

Speaking of the Clone Wars

Fans were also disappointed that, despite its mention early in the Original Trilogy, the Clone Wars were not heavily featured in the Prequel Trilogy. We can at least give the franchise some redemption as they created a TV series called The Clone Wars.

But go back to 2002, when Attack of the Clones aired. We only saw how they created the Clone Army, Obi-Wan’s meeting with Dooku, and the Battle of Geonosis.

Then in 2005, when Revenge of the Sith hit theaters, we saw the fight over Coruscant, Obi-Wan’s duel with Grievous, Anakin’s turn to the dark side, Order 66, and the rise of the Galactic Empire.

This was anticlimactic for many who anticipated more mentions of the Clone Wars since Luke Skwyalker touched on the subject early in A New Hope.

How Badly Did the Star Wars Prequels Fail?

Since Star Wars was an established franchise with a solid fanbase, the Prequel Trilogy did not fail financially, earning nearly $1.5 billion at the box office in the US and Canada, and $2.5 billion worldwide.

However, its critical response suffered, with no Prequel movie earning higher than a 79% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Compared to the Original Trilogy, Return of the Jedi garnered the lowest score at 83% positive.

The Phantom Menace received the lowest score of the Skywalker Saga at 51%. The Prequels also had the lowest overall ratings on Metacritic, scoring a 51, 54, and 68, respectively.

Meanwhile, both the Original and Sequel Trilogies scored at least an 80 on two of their three respective films.

Only Return of the Jedi (58), and The Rise of Skywalker (53) scored lower than 80. Of the two films, The Rise of Skywalker was the only one to score lower than two of the Prequel Trilogy’s films.

Did the Star Wars Prequels Do Any Good?

The Star Wars Prequels did accurately explain how the Original Trilogy came to be, and they did this in an action-packed way, despite the questionable storylines. One example is how Darth Vader and Palpatine looked so deformed in the Original Trilogy.

Better yet, this occurred during two of the more action-packed scenes of The Prequel Trilogy. And while they took the glamor and vastness out of the Empire, the Star Wars Prequels still zeroed in on the sequence of events that led to Order 66 and the creation of the Empire.

Some fans, even those that did not enjoy the Prequels, will argue that the Original Trilogy left many loose ends, and the Prequels tied them up.

Conclusion 

Many fans saw the Star Wars Prequels as anticlimactic letdowns. Much of this stemmed from a predictable storyline and a lack of character development for much of the cast in the first three films.

The overall mystery of the Star Wars galaxy, plus the dominance of the Galactic Empire, were also unsatisfying to many who grew up on the Original Trilogy. They discovered this vast, powerful Empire had only been around for 19 years.

And instead of some magical, mysterious system that gave the Jedi their powers, microbes were the culprits. The films did not fail financially, nor did they receive universal criticism, but they are ranked the lowest overall when compared to the Original and Sequel Trilogies.