It was produced entirely by a show packager that churned out such “holiday specials” using a boilerplate formula and had no understanding of anything about Star Wars. You might as well criticize any of hundreds of “Perry Como’s Christmas in Rome” or “John Davidson and His Easter Friends” things.
Battlefield Earth is indeed far worse, but it had a lot less talent behind it(at least in theory).
I also can say that the following reasonably budgeted movies are worse:
- Jack and Jill
- Catwoman
- Master of Disguise
- Batman and Robin(close call, but I think it is worse)
- Highlander 2 - even more disappointing, too
- Superman IV
Agreed. TPM is truly terrible, but it has the redeeming presence of Liam Neeson who actually tries to ground the movie in something soulful. Plus, Anakin may be an annoying twerp, but that’s far preferable to his incarnation as a creepy stalker with mommy issues. AOTC tries to add a romantic dimension and fails miserably. It is the bottom of the SW rung.
However, they’re still better (marginally, mind you) than John Wick, 1000 Ways to Die in the West and Men, Women and Children to name just 3 detestable movies from last year alone.
It’s the Nick Cage remake of The Wicker Man.
Game over.
I liked AOTC better than TPM. The romance was laughably bad – but at least I laughed! I never laughed at Jar Jar. Further, AOTC had the arena fights, the very cool mass Jedis-vs-droids fight, and the Yoda-vs-Dooku fight at the end, plus the fun (though totally unnecessary) dogfight with Boba Fett in the asteroid field. I thought it had more ‘highs’ than TPM, while the lows were at least amusingly bad.
I don’t really disagree here that TPM was pretty bad, mostly because it was so confusing, but I’d just like to point this out:
When most of us saw the original trilogy, we were pretty young. For me it was ages 7-13.
When most of us saw the prequels, we were adults.
I think Lucas had kids in mind when he made these movies. We saw the prequels as adults, but they were still made by the same guy with same target audience…kids.
GR had hardly struck gold at that point. I saw him before the movie on his lecture tour as he tried to drum up support for a movie or a new series from fans.
ST:TMP suffered from trying to be an epic and an attempt to do all the effects that they couldn’t do in the series. IIRC the effects were close to a disaster. The overly long Enterprise shot was trying to show us what we only saw from a distance before.
Plus, they got a famous director to do it, so it wasn’t all GR’s fault. Sure it was a redo, but so was the second film, which everyone loves.
I was 12 when I first saw PM, thought it was shit then. That said I saw the original trilogy even younger and it didn’t do much for either, BUT I could appreciate it on an aesthetical sense. I’m not sure what style PM was going for, but I’m sure I’d hate it even if it weren’t fakey fake and clusterfuck composition.
Anyway, I’d recommend Mr. Plinkett’s Starwars reviews. He pretty much nails everything on the head.
Thing about this argument is, when I was a kid, there were a lot of TV shows and movies that I loved. And very, very few of them hold up today. In terms of sheer numbers of hours, I spent significantly more time watching the GI Joe cartoons than I did Star Wars, and watching those cartoons as an adult, they’re just dire. I could give you a list of other stuff I loved as a kid that followed a similar trajectory. Even the kid stuff back then that was actually good, I still engage with on the level of, “This is really well made children’s entertainment,” not just, “This is really good.” Star Wars is one of the few exceptions.
And that’s accepting the idea that it was meant to be kiddie fare in the first place, which I don’t think stands up. Star Wars, when it came out, was a genuine cultural phenomenon. Darth Vader was on the cover of Time Magazine, back when that meant something. It was nominated for Best Picture. Part of that was that Lucas was banking on people having nostalgia for the Republic serials of their own youths, but that doesn’t change the fact that a significant (if not majority) of the original audience for the movie was adults.
If nothing else, with Star Wars, Lucas made a film that had both cross-generational appeal, and significant staying power. I don’t think anyone can make that claim about The Phantom Menace. There are a lot of adults who saw Star Wars as a kid, and still list it among their favorite films. Where are the adults who saw The Phantom Menace as a kid, who still rank it among their favorites?
Survivors of a disaster often form strong emotional bonds.
Most Christmas specials have a WTF vibe, TSWCS, which I’ve seen, is far, far, far worse. It is so bad that if the Vogons see it, they will destroy the earth to suppress it alone, never mind the intergalactic thoroughfare.
The Star Wars Holiday Special isn’t so bad it’s good. It’s just bad. Obligatory XKCD.
On the contrary, The Star Wars Holiday Special may be the one thing that saves us from the Vogons. It’s the only thing in the galaxy that makes their poetry sound good by comparison.
Hmm I’d put Avatar below it. Phantom Menace bored me and the acting was wooden. Avatars characters and story line couldn’t have shown less depth if they got run over by a steamroller.
Another vote for Attack of The Clones as being the most dire of all the Star Wars. For all the reasons mentioned and plenty of others. Anakin-related, mostly (actually, that was 80% of what was wrong with The Phantom Menace as well - Jar-Jar only get’s 20% because Anakin had 4 times as much screen time).
Maybe the whole prequels would have been better, if, instead of trying to create a whole backstory of how and why Anakin/Darth became evil, the answer was ‘He just fucking is, all right?’
In TPM’s defense, it did not have a character actually named “Nigger.” 
Avatar characters were 2 dimensional, but they had clear personalities and clear objectives. In contrast, the characters in TPM… weren’t. They had no character, no personality, no motivations, no purpose. Nothing.
That is, IMO, the single biggest failing of the movie, and the key reason why it failed everywhere else. The characters weren’t personalities. They weren’t even 2 dimensional personalities. They were just empty costumes. Obi Wan wasn’t brave, or clever, or honest or cowardly or foolhardy. He was just… there. Princess Armadillo wasn’t snobby or ditzy or charismatic or manipulative. She was just… there.
There was just no characterisation in the movie. Any character could have been put into the costume of another character, and the movie would have been identical. At least in Avatar, the general was gung-go, the scientist was compassionate, the marine was cocky and conflicted. Sure, those are 2 dimensional characters. But they were characters. Now try the same thing with TPM. Give two personality traits of any of the characters. Princess Armadillo was…… RastaFrog was…. Nope, not a trace of character in any of them.
That then flows through to their motivations. Why were the Jedi the spaceship at the start? They were ambassadors, but were they meant to threaten the other party? Use their wits? Mind control them? What were they doing right from the outset. Then they decide to warn the planet it was being invaded by travelling with the invading army. Why? What was the motivation? The planet must have known that an invading army meant an invading army. Why would two guys running in front of the army shouting “The Red Coats are coming!” make it any more apparent? Once again, there’s no obvious motivation. Then we find out that the army has landed on the opposite side of the planet from the city it wants to invade, and can somehow travel across a densely populated world without anybody seeing it. Why? How? Once again, no motivation.
And this goes on throughout the movie right up to the climactic scene where the good guys take a 10 yo boy and a 13 yo girl out of a safe city and drag them into a warzone. And as soon as they get into the warzone, they abandon the boy in a parked car. And they do this because…. Nothing. No reason, no motivation. Just because.
The problem isn’t that the characterisation and motives are cartoonish as they are in Avatar. The problem is that there is no characterisation and not motive for any character at any point. The characters just jump from one action to the next because the script demands it, for no logical reason. As a result the whole movie ends up a complete, unwatchable mess.
They sort of went over that while traveling in the sub. Apparently Jedi don’t make plans, they go with The Force.
Sith are the plotters and planners. It’s a wonder why it took so long for one to get control of all the systems.
Apparently it is contagious. Merely having the Jedi around meant that the invading army, the senate, Princess Armadillo, the Flying Jew and every other character in the movie also saw no need to have a plan.
Ok, our invasion tactic is… (rolls dice) we buy a ship full of yaks and crash it into the planet.
I implied that Lucas is a hack in only one other thread. And at least Star Trek V still has the relationships between the three leads intact. Star Trek V may have failed but worse than the SW prequels? Not in my opinion.
Seriously, the argument the public responded poorly to the prequels because our expectations were too high doesn’t cut it. Did anyone see the OT special editions from 1997? Unnecessary CGI, jawas performing slapstick, silly CGI dance numbers, altered dialogue that assumes the audience is stupid, and Han and Greedo exchanging fire?
In fact, there were signs that Lucas was slipping going back to Return of the Jedi. Another Death Star? Are you fucking kidding me? Lucas was so uninspired that he decided to make the film about another Death Star? The silly opening muppet scene? Harrison Ford - who was brilliant in the two prior films - given nothing to do. And of course the nonsense about Luke and the princess being siblings. (After they kissed passionately in the prior film and Luke obviously had sexual desire for her. Gross.)
And why exactly did Darth Vader die? He survived the loss of limbs, being lit on fire, and then he dies because Luke cuts off his mechanical hand.
Edit: I also think the racial stereotypes began with Jedi. The ewoks believed in magic and voodoo, were fascinated by C3PO’s shiny gold color, were tribal, and lived in the trees like little monkeys. Weren’t all of these stereotypes at one point used unfairly against people of African decent?