If you want to blame Smith, and Smith alone, for those movies, have at it. It’s no skin off my nose, nor off his, most likely. But if you think he’s the only person responsible for them, you’re dreaming.
This is a whoosh, right?
Natalie Portman plays the part of Padme like she is reading the fricking phonebook.
I liked Ewan McGregor in it, but Natalie Portman single-handedly sucked the life out of every scene she was in.
By the way, I saw the Alternate Version of I Am Legend and really, really liked it.
The cinematic release was an absolute steaming turd but the alternate version has a much, much better ending that is much more in line with the book.
This makes sense to me. Also, it wouldn’t deter all too much from the Darth Vader of the older movies, who honestly feels like a different character altogether.
The recent Star Wars triology is a Tyrannosaurus Rex of crushed expectations and wasted potential, to the point that it actually diminishes the quality of its source material. That said, there are good bits in it. I really like the plot of senator Palpatine and his power claim (the execution of it is another story). Also, there are a number of actors in the movies (McGregor, Lee, et al) who under different circumstances could really have made the movies come together. Episode 1 was seriously flawed, but it wasn’t disastrous and, I think, could have led way to something better.
For shame.
OK, then, Armageddon.
It might not be big budget enough for the purposes of this thread, costing “only” 60 million dollars ($5 million less than the first Matrix film), but Alvin and the Chipmunks made over $200 million in the US ($335 million worldwide, US included) and was a spectacularly horrible film.
zzzzzzz
I don’t think Lucas ever really figured out what kind of government his franchise was supposed to be using. The good guys were supposed to be a Republic but in the “first” movie we’re told that Padme Amidala is a Queen. Somebody must have handed Lucas a dictionary after this, because in the next movie we’ve switched and Padme’s an elected Senator (they elected a sixteen year old to their highest office?). Judging from the way they treat her back home, Senator apparently doesn’t mean the same thing it does here on Earth. Which I guess explains how Senator Bail Organa was able to adopt a baby and then raise her to be a Princess.
IIRC, Padme was elected queen by the people of Naboo, but was termed out of office when she got too old. She then became a senator.
.
I could be wrong since I wasn’t really paying too much attention to that plot point but I got the impression that the monarchy on Naboo (like in the UK) no longer had any real power and were mostly figureheads. Padme presumeably ran for Senator because it was a way she thought it was the best way she could serve her planet as opposed to sitting around the palace and generally doing nothing except being trotted out for the occasional ceremony. As for how a 16-year old could get elected Senator, she was supposed to be very bright (and, no doubt, name recognition helped). 
(I’m thinking too much about the government structure featured in a movie I was, at best, indifferent to.)
I specifically remember her mentioning that she was elected queen. I’d looked at it as if she was elected to the position of President, just with a different name.
Anyway, to the OP, I actually don’t think the Star Wars prequels are THAT bad. I think the main reason people disdain them so much is because of the expectations put upon them by being the prequels to the originals, but on their own, they just suffer from poor acting and a poorly thought out plot.
That said, my vote would go for Independence Day. It’s just an absolutely horrible movie, with a plot the makes no sense. I mean, using a Mac to implant a virus on an Alien mothership? That said, as horrible as the movie is, if we can pretend the plot makes any sense at all, it’s watchable.
If anything, I would REALLY want to vote for Highlander 2, but I don’t think that would count as being a Blockbuster.
Well you see, the point there was that by using a Mac, they could be sure their own computer wouldn’t be rendered useless by viruses and spyware before they could attempt to use it on the alien ship 
Star Wars I,II and III. Masterpieces.
Supposed I,II and III. I usually don’t recognize their existence but for this thread I’d say definitely some of the biggest turkey blockbusters around.
Han fired first.
Actually, Greedo never fired at all, so say “first” is, uh, redundant, or something.
Paraphrased dramatic scene from The Swarm:
“We’ve got to kill these bees!”
“Let’s kill them with fire!”
“Okay, we’ve lit a match and Houston is burning to the ground!”
“I forgot - bees can fly!”
True, garygnu. It’s just kind of a Star Wars geek catchphrase.
Was the part about Padme being elected Queen mentioned in The Phantom Menace? I don’t recall any mention of her position being an elective one until Attack of the Clones. I feel that if the first movie had said that a fourteen year old* girl had being elected Queen, it would have been strange enough for me to have remembered but I could be wrong.
*I know I said she was sixteen years old before. But I checked with Wikipedia and her character was actually supposed to have been fourteen in The Phantom Menace.
from TPM, via the [Wookieepedia](I was not elected to watch my people suffer and die while you discuss this invasion in a committee!"
―Queen Amidala, to the Galactic Senate):
backup cite do a Find and search for “elected”
Then The Phantom Menace was indeed actually more ill-conceived than I had remembered it being.
Were the Star Wars movies intended for adults or for kids? From my perspective, it seems that they are mostly meant for 10 to 14 year olds, not 33 year old guys.
Yes, from an adult perspective, the acting and dialogue is wooden and some of the characters and action is downwright silly and annoying, but the kiddos seem to dig it. On this level, the movies works.
I frequently work with groups of elementary school children. I know plenty of kids who were into Jar Jar Binks and that guy with the horns and double light saber. I know plenty of kids who were thrilled by the pod race and liked the fact that the characters sometimes rode animals rather than machines. I know kids who thought that Amadala was a good and regal queen and that she did not look silly running around shooting that laser pistol. They wanted to be Anakin or Padme. I have to rank these movies behind only behind the Harry Potter movies as films that inspired imagination, play, and devotion to the films and the world that they created.
I loved the first released Star Wars, it was far more than just a movie to me when I was a kid. This is despite it featuring Mark Hamill (enough said).
Gah. This thing about ‘uploading a virus using a Mac’ has taken on a life of its own. That’s not really what happens in the film - it’s just a popular myth that everybody repeats.
I mean, the film can be rightly criticised in many ways, but this isn’t one of them - at least, not a valid one. Goldblum’s character is shown to have deciphered and reverse engineered the alien’s communication protocols - the ‘virus’ thing is not just glossed over like everybody says it is.