Before Star Wars became the punching bag of its own fanbase with the Disney trilogy dividing a lot of the fans opinions, the prequels were the three Star Wars films that were deemed the poison to their beloved series, with overly complicated stories that destroyed its worldbuilding as opposed to enhance it, characters ranging from annoying bland and one-note to childish insulting, way too much CGI as opposed to a mix between both digital and physical effects, and having what should have been a triumphant return to Star Wars be instead a poorly directed horribly written trilogy that hurt more than it offered. For all the hate that was placed on The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, the only one that seemed to be more of what fans were looking for was the final instalment of the trilogy, Revenge of the Sith. With the Clone Wars still raging on, Jedi Padawan Anakin (played again by Hayden Christensen) and his master Obi-wan Kenobi (played again by Ewan McGregor) are working on tracking down the last line of offence, General Grievous (voiced by Matthew Wood) to officially end the war. Anakin is given a special position by the Jedi Council to watch/spy on Chancellor Palpatine (played by Ian McDiarmid) since they fear he is hiding something to keep himself in power. Sure enough, Palpatine proves to know more about the force than he let on, even being taught in the ways of the dark side. He has been slowly overtime pushing Anakin away from the Jedi and closer to his side, mainly by exploiting his fear of losing his wife Padme (played by Natalie Portman) who Anakin dreamed would die in childbirth. While Obi-wan continues to do another political mission, Anakin’s emotional struggle may eventual push him over to the wrong side and turn him into a figure that would be feared throughout the galaxy for years to come. Out of the three movies, this was the only one that came close to being a good movie. With scenes and a spirit that felt like traditional Star Wars, Revenge of the Sixth, while still not good, ended off this rocky trilogy in the most solid way it could have.

Star Wars is at its best when it takes simple themes and concepts and fleshes them out in complex ways; it was a brilliant way of starting from small beginnings and continuing to grow, as well as making a product that was easily recognisable and engaging while still having a hint of bigger ideas. This trilogy tries to cram so much complicated war talks and adult-orientated ideals into its poorly established world that it leaves everything feeling uninteresting and shallow. The set-up for the film, the origin of Darth Vader, makes this film arguably the only one that needs to be witnessed out of the three. It expresses the concerns and fears of the main protagonist in a simple yet realistic way that gives the audience everything they need to know, which the previous two did nothing of the sorts. It was the first one not to feature political talks, stupid annoying side characters and pointless action scenes and instead dedicated more time to Anakin’s emotional turmoil and his connection with Palpatine, which offer up the only really great scenes in this trilogy. They feel like classic star wars; the writing becomes less pandering and dull, the tone is much darker and more consistent, the acting between the two is better, and while Anakin’s turn from good to evil happens way too out of nowhere, it at least tried to lay the stones out enough that it would feel somewhat reasonable. Anything still connected with Obi-wan trying to stop the war is the usual boring Prequel stuff which impacts nothing, features nothing interesting and only slows down a film that is already too long. This trilogy has done such a poor job with its world-building and characters that anytime an interesting idea comes up that could be explored, it’s only given a few seconds of thought and never addressed again, which would explain why this era of Star Wars time would be much better handled in the tv show, The Clone Wars, where it was given better direction, writing and allowed to breath with its ideas.

The characters in the original Star Wars trilogy started off as pretty basic archetypes of classic fantasy characters, having very little outside of that to make them interesting until they were given more time in other movies to become their own creations. The characters in this trilogy are so bland and poorly written that they aren’t even cliched characters, they’re only one-note gimmicks; Obi-wan says some one-liners, Yoda always senses something bad happening, the side villain is so forgettable and bland that he’s practically a throw-away in his own movie, Samuel L Jackson is moody all the time, and the rest of the nameless Jedis are completely useless and add nothing to the film. The only two with any baggage of any kind is the villain, who has a lot of fun and imposing moments, and Anakin, who while still being written and acted pretty shakily, has enough emotional invested and clear narrative direction that people can understand his issues. The character’s lack of emotional connections makes most of the film’s drama feel unearned and false because none of the characters share any chemistry, especially with his connection to his love interest and his teacher-student dynamic with Obi-Wan. The acting is the traditional flat, overly serious, and directionless delivery that is usual for these films, but at least with a more solid framework and less focus on stupid humor, there is a few scenes that work much stronger here than in any of the others. With Hayden Christensen especially, even though his performance is still not very good, there are several moments throughout where he emotes very effectively to the point where he genuinely feels like a younger version of Darth Vader. Anytime a scene allows the emotions to play out, they work out pretty well. Ewan McGregor still handles the dialogue the best out of any of them yet is so trivial and pointless to the story, he comes across as annoying instead. Natalie Portman as the love interest is especially bad mainly due to the horrible romance dialogue and her character’s lack of purpose outside of giving birth to the original film’s protagonists.

The overuse of CGI has become incredibly apparent at this point, with practically nothing being or feeling authentic in the slightest. While that is an issue, the effects are still relatively nice looking and aren’t ugly to watch throughout the whole movie, especially when a sunset is coming down over the main city area where it can lead to some pleasant location imagery. The action in the film is much more featured in this film, opening with a large goofy space infiltration that, while it goes on too long, is at least trying to feel like classic Star Wars, and the final battle on a burning planet, which has a nice location and features some fun choreography in the fight, but has no emotional invested so it’s Impossible to care about what the fight represents. When heaps of Jedi soldiers get slaughtered during the middle of the movie, it is hard to care about characters that have had next to no screen-time, along with no dialogue or even a name given to them, they are just there to provide a false feeling of drama. The writing for the film is still home to many infamous lines that are painfully bad and quotable as anything, missing the mark of what the scenes requires so heavily that it always provides a nice laugh. However with how the film is constructed around Anakin’s story, the scenes tied with that storyline not only bring up concepts that are far more interesting than anything ever brought up in the trilogy, but also where the dialogue feels natural and not overly forced and stupid. There’s an entire scene within an opera house where it features good pacing, good visuals, good writing and good acting, but it impacts practically nothing in the overall film and turns what could be the best scene in the entire trilogy, and makes it mean nothing. The concepts of the hypocrisy of the Jedi, the wavering rules behind the force and the unstable nature of the Jedi order are all great ideas that could provide a complexity not even addressed in the first trilogy, yet it never become more than a passing thought.

Anytime a problem can be brought up about the Prequel Star Wars trilogy, it feels like milking a hollow cow; forcing something that cannot be done as strongly anymore due to time. With how much time has gone on since these three films have been created, they are still part of the black cloud around Star Wars, but it is hard to say that nothing came from them. It had a lot of Lucas’ influence in it (for better or worse) and even though it only did it in one film, it had a purpose for existing in telling the origin of the lead bad guy. It had some nice visuals; it had some fun fights and it even helped spark other TV shows that took its concepts and made them legitimately amazing. Revenge of the Sixth was the closest these films have come to offering up a real Star Wars experience. It had some nice scenes and could have been something stronger with better writing, directing and more time to flesh out its ideas, but for it is, it’s probably the only prequel film that can be watched without too much hassle. Still a fair amount of dumb but a whole lot less Jar Jar, that automatically makes this the best one out of the three.