# Which are worse – the Star Wars prequels or The Hobbit movies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 21, 2015, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363 "2015-10-21T16:03:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/21 "2015-10-21T20:37:20Z")
Star Wars prequel. The Hobbit movies weren’t bad IMHO. The main problem was that the battle sequences were far too long and bloated. More than that, at no time do you ever feel that a character is in actual danger of losing the battle. They just hack and shoot endless CGI orcs and parkour over rocks all the live long day. That is unless they happen to reach a point in the story where Tolkien had one of his characters dying. At which point, they will get killed by some super-orc like a boss in a videogame. The prequels are neigh unwatchable. Heck, I could barely watch the edit of the three prequels merged into a single better film. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/22 "2015-10-21T20:49:39Z")
The Star Wars prequels were worse. The Hobbit movies were just too long; you could conceivably edit them down to a single good movie. I don’t think the Star Wars prequels even contain the seed of a good movie in them. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/23 "2015-10-21T20:50:57Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I disagree with the premise of the thread. Neither of these trilogies are “artistic failures” in any sense of the term. Just admit you haven’t seen them. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/24 "2015-10-21T20:54:46Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I’ve only seen the first HOBBIT movie, as i was too disgusted to give Peter Jackson anything other than a slap in the face after watching it–certainly not any more of my money. You made the right choice. It doesn’t get better. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/25 "2015-10-21T21:03:09Z")
The only bad thing the two have in common is that the directors seemed to be trying to impress their kids with “wacky” scenes and possible toy tie-ins. But the acting in the Hobbit was decent to good, while Lucas managed to somehow turn good actors wooden. The Hobbit “love” parts seemed tacked on and pointless but the SW ones were literally cringe-inducing. As in I felt physically uncomfortable to watch them and wanted the plot to advance to something more positive, like slaughtering younglings. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/26 "2015-10-21T21:07:43Z")
Jar-Jar Binks. 'Nuff said. The Hobbit movies are ignorable, but the Star Wars Prequel are culturally invasive. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/27 "2015-10-21T21:15:13Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Huh…I must be the only person that liked the Hobbit movies . . . I adored 'em! I loved every minute. Sure, yeah, some problems (“Why are Dwarves coming out of our toilet?”) but, overall, I thought they were magical, wonderful, and beautiful to look at. In many ways, they’re better than the book. The Star Wars prequels are pretty, definitely: lots of truly excellent special effects. The fight in the foundry, with molten metal and lava was stunning; you could all but feel the heat. The acting, alas, was weak. Even terrible. (I don’t blame Hayden Christensen. His performance was hella-awful, but the Director made him do it that way. He was capable of a competent performance, and was denied it.) The plots were weak and silly. The Jedi Council, the repository of galactic wisdom, was stupid as a box of anvils. And Jar Jar Binks. C’mon. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/28 "2015-10-21T21:22:55Z")
Star Wars Prequels are worse. All 3 are crap and unwatchable. The first Hobbit movie was only bad and very very disappointing. The other 2 though matched the Star Wars Prequels for sucking. So Star Wars wins “worse” for me. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/29 "2015-10-21T21:29:38Z")
Woodiken? Jar Jar? You can’t simply edit those things away. The story is also a hot load of rubbish. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/30 "2015-10-21T21:49:44Z")
Say what you will about the Star Wars prequels; at least Lucas didn’t include a scene in which someone escapes from a collapsing bridge by _stepping on falling bricks_. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/31 "2015-10-21T21:53:46Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > Say what you will about the Star Wars prequels; at least Lucas didn’t include a scene in which someone escapes from a collapsing bridge by _stepping on falling bricks_. But he included jar jar. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/32 "2015-10-21T22:01:47Z")
Great, tough question. For me personally, The Hobbit movies were more disappointing, because my love of that novel exceeds my love of the original Star Wars movies. I found the awful bloat and pointless additions in The Hobbit movies more displeasing than the numerous flaws of the Star Wars prequels. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/33 "2015-10-21T22:05:46Z")
What **Troutman** and **lisiate** said. I had higher expectations for the Hobbit films and thus their fall was harder. I can tolerate re-watching isolated fragments of the SW prequels, but I’ll invariably change the channel rather than watch the Hobbit films. ---
**Author:** ![It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/it_s_not_rocket_surgery/32/312_2.png) [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/34 "2015-10-21T22:08:40Z")
I’ve gotta go with Star Wars. At least the Hobbit movies didn’t bring up midichlorians. Also when comparing CGI characters, Gollum \>\>\>\>\>\>\>\>\>\>\>\> Jar Jar (and I left out a few thousand “greater than” signs.) ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/35 "2015-10-21T22:31:58Z")
I hated hated hated the Jar-Jar Wars. I didn’t mind (tho not really liked) the Ho-humbbitses. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/36 "2015-10-21T23:06:19Z")
> [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](#): > > I’ve gotta go with Star Wars. At least the Hobbit movies didn’t bring up midichlorians. > > Also when comparing CGI characters, Gollum \>\>\>\>\>\>\>\>\>\>\>\> Jar Jar (and I left out a few thousand “greater than” signs.) It’s not really fair to compare the best and worst character from each. But SW had a paucity of cool characters, and even then, fan favorites like Darth Maul are boring as fuck. One thing I thought the Hobbit films did \*\*really \*\*well is differentiate the dwarves. In the book their personalities were basically: [ol] [li]The dickish leader[/li][li]The wise one who they find dead in LOTR[/li][li]His tough brother[/li][li]The cousin who dies[/li][li]The other cousin who dies[/li][li]Gimli’s dad[/li][li]Gimli’s uncle who gets eaten by a kraken[/li][li]The fat one[/li][li]The fat one’s brother[/li][li]The fat one’s brother or cousin or something. Hey, he’s got a different color hood![/li][li]The girl name one[/li][li]Rhymes with girl name[/li][li]Also rhymes… man dwarf parents take their naming schemes from the Duggars[/li][/ol] Compare the movies, where most of them have real personalities. It wasn’t perfect, as I’m still not sure which is Dori and which is Nori, but much better. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/37 "2015-10-21T23:34:53Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > The Hobbit movies, on the other hand, are telling a story that isn’t bad in itself. Their main problem is absurd bloat. Yeah, they screw up some characterizations but you could edit them down to a couple of reasonable movies. They aren’t nearly as unfixable as the Star Wars prequels. No argument with this. The Hobbit definitely _could be_ a much better movie than the prequels ever could be. But going by the movies that exist, I still think the Hobbit is worse because the bloat makes it unwatchable for me. However, if the comparison was Episode I versus the Hobbit, the “worse” title goes to Ep I. The prequel trilogy as a whole is redeemed slightly by Episode III. It still has a ton of flaws, but at least it held my interest. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/38 "2015-10-21T23:41:04Z")
Well, I was never a big Star Wars fan as a little kid, so I only had the Rankin-Bass Hobbit movie to hold the modern version against under the harsh, honeyed light of nostalgia… That, and any work that doesn’t have Paul Frees loses points to a version that does. Objectively. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/39 "2015-10-21T23:56:05Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > The only bad thing the two have in common is that the directors seemed to be trying to impress their kids with “wacky” scenes and possible toy tie-ins. But the acting in the Hobbit was decent to good, while Lucas managed to somehow turn good actors wooden. The Hobbit “love” parts seemed tacked on and pointless but the SW ones were literally cringe-inducing. As in I felt physically uncomfortable to watch them and wanted the plot to advance to something more positive, like slaughtering younglings. McGregor, Lee, and Jackson all turned in excellent performances despite the bad direction; Portman and Christensen, both good in other roles, were defeated by it. I think it was a matter of the latter pair being very young, and McGregor being stubborn enough to do what he wanted, and Lee & Jackson just not giving a fuck what Lucas said. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2015, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363/40 "2015-10-22T00:14:08Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > McGregor, Lee, and Jackson all turned in excellent performances despite the bad direction; Portman and Christensen, both good in other roles, were defeated by it. I think it was a matter of the latter pair being very young, and McGregor being stubborn enough to do what he wanted, and Lee & Jackson just not giving a fuck what Lucas said. Jackson always plays Jackson. And Lee has killed men. What director was going to intimidate him? Exactly. Portman and Christensen have received accolades in other movies, so it’s not like they’re awful. Scenes like this though: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lbzFnbmBoE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lbzFnbmBoE) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-worse-the-star-wars-prequels-or-the-hobbit-movies/735363.md?page=3)