Looking Back at What the Star Wars Prequels and Sequels Got Right

When The Last Jedi inspired me to renew my Jedi vows despite the negativity in the Star Wars community, I never dreamed that the film would go on to spark more division than even the prequels. Everyone, including myself, has at least one beef with the films. But with The Rise of Skywalker bringing a long-awaited conclusion to the Skywalker Saga, it’s time to look past these issues and admit that all of the films (well, except maybe the holiday special) are awesome in their own ways. We can all agree that the original trilogy is pretty much perfect, but here are some things that the prequels and the first two films of the sequel trilogy got right.

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Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Dear reader, I hope not to lose you right off the bat, but I submit that the Gungans are awesome. They are unfairly judged on the admittedly low merits of Jar Jar Binks. Put him aside and there’s a lot to love about the amphibious inhabitants of Naboo. A proud warrior culture, the Gungans march into battle alongside space dinosaurs, from their small and agile kaadu mounts to the mighty fambaa that carry the army’s shield generators and heavy cannons on their backs. When they’re not facing off against droid battalions, the Gungans can be found chilling in Otoh Gunga, their ridiculously cool underwater bubble city.

Honorable Mention: Darth Maul is fierce. There’s a reason they brought him back in The Clone Wars.

Episode II: Attack of the Clones

I’ll be the first to admit the romance between Anakin and Padmé is forced and even stilted at times. But it’s just a distraction from the film’s main attraction: Obi-Wan’s investigation into the mystery of Padmé’s attacker, which leads the Jedi into an intense confrontation with Jango Fett—first on Slave I’s rainsoaked landing pad and subsequently in the asteroids above Geonosis, Obi-Wan’s nimble Jedi starfighter pursued by Slave I, bristling with as much diverse weaponry as its pilot. One might argue that the battle of wits between Jedi and bounty hunter begins no later than when the two first meet in the latter’s home quarters on Kamino. I may be mixing in a bit of Legends lore here, but we learn in the video game Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, and can reasonably conjecture as remaining a canon truth, that the reason Jango is chosen to serve as the template for this film’s titular clones is because of his ability to defeat Jedi, a purpose the clones ultimately exist to fulfill. So when Obi-Wan says he looks forward to seeing Jango’s army in action, Jango simply tells him, “They’ll do their job well. I’ll guarantee that.” He’s already put two and two together, and Obi-Wan has no idea that he’s just been threatened.

Honorable Mention: The rescue on Geonosis. This is the only time in the saga that we see so many Jedi blades light up the screen at once, and even after seeing Attack of the Clones many times, this scene always gets me excited.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Arguably the strongest of the prequels, Revenge of the Sith has a number of qualities that are worthy of mention. But the reason we went to theaters to see it, the reason it remains such an important Star Wars film, is because this is where we see Anakin’s transformation from the good young man we have gotten to know in the first two prequels into the ominous figure of Darth Vader. Still troubled by the loss of his mother in Attack of the Clones, when he begins to have premonitions of Padmé dying in childbirth, he resolves to protect her and their child no matter the cost. His decision, though motivated by love, is corrupted by hubris. Ian McDiarmid’s performance as Palpatine in this film is brilliant, as he plays upon Anakin’s vulnerability to turn him against the Jedi, and I am one of those who read Padmé’s death—and Darth Vader’s resurrection—as the result of Palpatine’s manipulation of the Force using the technique he learned from his master, Darth Plagueis. That the power with which Anakin hoped to save his wife should be the very thing that steals her life away is tragedy in a very Greek sense.

Honorable Mention: The climactic duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan is over-the-top. The duel is so spectacular that it’s actually a little depressing when these two meet again in the original film, set 19 years later, they put on a far less impressive show. I know they’re older, but still.

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Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Until Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm and the announcement of a sequel trilogy, most everyone assumed that Revenge of the Sith would be the last main film in the saga, and the title The Force Awakens plays more into that feeling of renewed excitement in the fandom than the quote by Snoke it directly refers to. We meet an all-new cast of characters, and the most interesting of these—in fact, I’ll be bold and say the most interesting character in the whole saga—is the film’s villain, Kylo Ren. When crafting the film, J. J. Abrams and the rest of the team knew that whatever adversary they came up with could never rival the iconic status of Darth Vader. Rather than wallow in this inevitability, they wrote it into the character. Kylo Ren’s core struggle is the conflict between his worship of his grandfather and the knowledge that he cannot fill Vader’s shoes. We don’t know yet, but it could even be that the “call to the light” that stymies Kylo’s progress is because whenever he reaches out for Vader’s spiritual guidance, he instead calls the redeemed spirit of Anakin Skywalker, who died a hero. This is far more human and compelling to watch than another single-minded nemesis.

Honorable Mention: Rey’s silent encounter with Luke at the film’s conclusion gave me chills.

Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

This film’s detractors have a lot to say about what Rian Johnson got wrong. And I’ll be honest: I do agree with some of them. But one issue that keeps popping up whenever this film is being discussed is the portrayal of Luke Skywalker, which for me was the highlight of The Last Jedi. We haven’t seen this man in 30 years, and we can hardly expect him to be the same person we remember. A lot has happened to him, and while his decision to sever himself from the Force is shocking, it’s entirely justified given what we’ve already learned. He tried to raise a new order of Jedi, as Yoda commanded him to do. Having it all taken away from him because of one moment of weakness—something we all face in our lives—should be enough to make anyone reject their past, and yet he faces it by projecting himself onto Crait to confront his fallen apprentice. This is a power we’ve never seen before, from a Jedi who is no longer connected to the Force, and it costs him his life to do so. There is no more fitting way for a hero as legendary as Luke Skywalker to meet his end, than for him to sacrifice himself to give the Resistance time to escape.

Honorable Mention: Porgs.

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The Rise of Skywalker has a major task to fulfill—to tie up the Skywalker Saga and offer a sense of closure that can’t plausibly be undone as easily as the Emperor’s defeat in Return of the Jedi. While the original trilogy remains the origin and core focus of the saga, all of the films have something to offer, and all essentially point toward this central message: there is a constant battle being waged in all of us, between the power of love and compassion and the power of hate and aggression. Whichever side wins out will be the one we choose to feed, and if our fandom is to survive and thrive, it will do so when we choose to love the films in spite of their flaws, rather than hate the films because of them.