Originally Posted by
Kaleredar
People commonly cite the "duel of the fates" scene as being "a good scene from Episode 1," despite the fight having... absolutely zero narrative heft, us knowing next to nothing about Darth Maul, and Qui-Gon's death not really going on to inform anything in the series from a dramatic angle.
I think people like flippy light saber fights, Darth Maul's cool design, and choral John Williams scores. But they use that scene to justify all of Episode 1.
Episode 2 really sees almost... no justification from anyone (even though I'd argue it's really the only prequel where 1) Padme gets to do anything actiony 2) Anakin and Obi-wan work together in earnest and 3) you see anakin actually make progress towards the dark side based on his own feelings in slaughtering the sandpeople for killing his mother,) but I think the sort of "cool scene" people usually go to is... flippy yoda and maybe the arena fight at the end? But again, that's all just CGI spectacle.
Episode 3 has the fight on Mustafar which... much like Episode 1... people like the choral john williams and flippy lightsaber fight. But you're correct in stating that it really doesn't have much dramatic heft because Obi-wan and Anakin aren't really fleshed out characters within the prequel series. They're actually given very little screen time together, especially in Episode 3.
And don't get me wrong, I'm partial to sci-fi worldbuilding... I think a lot of the environments and creatures created for the prequels are super cool. But I know that those things do not a good movie make, nor do they excuse the wooden dialogue and pointless scene after pointless scene.
Episode 9? Most certainly. Episode 8? No.
And force lightning didn't exist until 10 minutes before the end of Episode 6. Did that bother you? How about Midichlorians? Fuck, in Episode 4 we weren't even really shown that the force could move things beyond vader being able to choke out fools. But hey, top of Episode 5... Luke's pulling a lightsaber out of the snow with his mind!
Don't act like Star Wars has ever been hard science.
People that have a problem with the hyperspeed ram or "how could the bombs drop when they're in space?!" in Episode 8 are just looking for things to whine about to justify not liking the movie.
Zero things are "understood" in Star Wars. It's all made up nonsense. And to say that that nonsense, which has been mutable for the entire course of the series, from the original trilogy through the prequels, is suddenly "inviolate" in the sequels is just silly.
Again... plot of Episode 8 isn't that hard to follow. The Luke, Rey and Kylo stuff stays really focused. That Luke was not who you expected him to be does not mean the narrative throughline of 8 isn't there. All that means... is that that Luke wasn't the Luke you expected him to be. Hell, Luke goes through an entire arc in Episode 8. You didn't like his characterization, but that doesn't mean he didn't have any
I have issues with people misattributing their dislike for the way characters were handled or the nitty gritty of made up space-physics with "filmmaking incompetence," because they're not the same thing.
I DO think that a lot of your criticisms actually apply to Episode 9. And if you want to measure that from an actual objective standpoint, look to the critical reviews of the Last Jedi... which were really quite good, because film critics, people who have looked at and watched hundreds of films that aren't just star wars in an attempt to appreciate the craft of film in general assessed the film as a film and found it competently made, versus critical reviews of Rise of Skywalker, which were really quite poor because film critics assessed the film as a film and found it quite incompetently made.
If anyone fancies themself a judge of film or a person with creative story ambitions, I'd advise an appreciation of the difference. It doesn't mean you have to like Episode 8 at all, but understanding your reasons for actually disliking it instead of blaming it on things that weren't the issues at hand is important.
And yes, I remember people making the dumbass excuse that Disney must have paid critics to like Episode 8 or that critics were too "afraid" to speak out against Episode 8 and in reality hated it but were afraid some SJW cancel cult would come after them. Which is stupid, especially considering the fact that critics rightly derided Episode 9 anyway.
Maybe, instead of some weird conspiracy, Episode 8 is actually a competently made movie that didn't match up with what people wanted in their heads and they were disappointed, and Episode 9 was actually an incompetently made movie because... it was an incompetently made movie. As I said, an appreciation of that difference is important.