>>1509>>1511I can't say I agree with the semi common allegation that GL "used a story to tell special effects" with the prequels, that's stretching it, but it's undeniable that their stories are much, much weaker than those of the original trilogy. The OT captured a lot of people's imaginations with its exotic alien planets, intergalactic political drama, and shades of an ancient monastic order of warriors, but all of this stuff took a backseat to what was at its heart a very simplistic - and not at all new - story about a group of loveable, relateable underdogs struggling against a greater malevolent force.
Basically, the lore and the worldbuilding - the setting - was window dressing for the
plot.When the prequels came around, unfortunately, the opposite happened. We got to see a bunch of things we already knew about from the OT actually happen - the Clone Wars, life in the Republic with the Jedi as a police force, Anakin's fall from grace - and while there were some neat revelations in there for fans, it wasn't anything we couldn't have just filled in the blanks on ourselves in our personal headcanons. While it was neat to see the world of the Republic fleshed out and meet the Jedi Council, there was no real relateable
story - no consistent arc, no protagonists, no underdogs - behind this lore / setting / windowdressing.
That's my beef with the prequels, they missed the point of Star Wars. The OT was about human characters and their interactions with one another, with a cool and well-thought out sci fi setting as a backdrop. The prequels showed us more of the setting including some things we hadn't seen before, but their stories felt as though they were just checklisted off of a list of things that had to be shown to lead in to the original trilogy. Nothing was done to make this story empathetic or relatable.