Truth be told, I’ve been a fan of Star Wars for about four years now but I have just now finished watching the prequel trilogy. It has been made fun of many times and people love to hate on it despite there being some genuine fans. From the clips I’ve seen I was unfortunately one of those haters but now with The Rise of Skywalker coming out I decided to sit down and just watch all three prequels and I have to say I don’t actually hate them!

Basically I’m gonna review each movie but not in-depth. I’ll give my thoughts on them and then at the end I’m gonna talk about the trilogy as a whole. There will be spoilers included so, SPOILER ALERT!!!

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace

This was the movie that kept me from watching the prequels. I believe I tried to watch it back when The Force Awakens came out and I couldn’t get past 30 minutes. I know for a fact that when The Last Jedi was about to come out I tried again and lasted an hour and ten minutes. This time I skipped all the way to where I left off and continued from there. This is easily my least-favourite Star Wars movie. It was honestly painful to watch but ironically I don’t hate it. I can talk about the negatives like every other person so instead I’m going to mainly focus on what I did like. Weirdly enough I’m a fan of the visual style, it’s unique, bold and it has that signature Star Wars look. I love Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi. The score by John Williams is amazing as expected, Duel of the Fates is one of the best pieces written for this saga. Darth Maul also looked cool and I love the idea of pod-racing but that’s about it. It’s boring, way too long and the acting is horrendous. There is no emotion and I couldn’t care less about who lived or died. However I did feel euphoric once I saw the ending credits realizing the movie is over. It’s not a movie I ever plan to revisit.

RATING: 4.7 / 10

Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones

For some reason I was actually excited to see this movie. I know it doesn’t have it’s fans but from the clips I saw it looked interesting and having seen it I can say that even though it pushes it’s luck during it’s second half, Attack of the Clones is an entertaining horrible movie. This movie is not good, it has a cringe-inducing performance from Hayden Christensen, dialogue which makes Disney Channel look like Tarantino and the story is a mess. However all of that doesn’t stop this movie from being an entertaining time. There is a lot that I liked in the first half. I like the chase scene at the beginning, I love the visual style that continued from the previous movie. I also love the sub-plot of Obi-Wan searching for Camino and his encounter with Jango Fett. I love how we actually get to see more of Obi-Wan in this movie, McGregor continues to be the shining star of this trilogy. When it comes to the “romance” between Padme and Anakin, at first it was plain creepy and awkward but then when the movie wants you to believe them as a couple, the scenes are so stiff and the dialogue is so bizarre that it actually made me laugh out loud. It was literally so bad it’s good. Overall it’s entertaining, has some interesting ideas but mostly a forgettable, horribly acted mess. That being said I could see myself revisiting this one.

RATING: 6 / 10

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith

This is the one with the memes and that people actually like so of course I was excited to see it. It’s the finale, it’s supposed to answer a ton of questions and get us pumped to see Anakin become Darth Vader and at the end I thought the movie was just good. I was ready to see Anakin go down the road to the dark side but I couldn’t feel anything for him since this entire trilogy he was a whining, impatient and annoying character. The reason for why he chooses the dark side could have been executed immensely better and Christensen’s performance while better still couldn’t deliver what the script asked him to. I will say that it is my favourite out of the trilogy, I love everything from when Palpatine executed Order 66 to the end. Speaking of Order 66, I love how dark this movie is, a ton of people including children die. A youngling even got shot on-screen. This movie pushed it’s PG-13 rating and it was a bold move to do so, it gave the movie some high stakes, something this trilogy was seriously lacking. I love the entire epilogue and the contrast of Anaking becoming Darth Vader and Padme giving birth to Luke and Leia. I liked Palpatine’s arc in this movie, it made me like the character more considering I was never a fan. As for the Obi-Wan and Anakin fight, I thought it was cool, nothing more or less. I liked it visually and I like the accompanying musical score but overall it didn’t have that much of an affect on me since I never saw Anakin and Obi-Wan as genuine friends, nothing in this trilogy made me believe that. Anakin’s always complaining about him and Obi-Wan patiently deals with him. Overall I think this is a good movie, it’s a great interlude to the original trilogy, the visual effects are great, the story could’ve been structured better but as a finale to the prequel trilogy and as a Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Sith succeeds.

RATING: 7.7 / 10

Overall the Prequel Trilogy is an entertaining mess. It’s not the best thing in the world but it’s also not the worst. The first two movies are bad, there’s no denying it but they have their positives as well. I actually love the visual style George Lucas chose for this trilogy, it’s unique and inviting. The score for all three movies are great. The action scenes are a mixed bag, some are great, some are horrible. It gave us Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan so there’s that and yes, I know this trilogy ruined Anakin’s potential as a character and Christensen’s performance is awful but on the bright side, everything about Anakin is so bad, it’s good. In fact that’s how I would describe the first two movies. The third movie is thankfully much better and it makes the trilogy worth watching. Now after all these years, knowing it’s reputation if you actually go in with the right mindset, you’ll actually have a lot of fun.