Patroklos wrote:I don't think this is correct. Two things can be objectively bad at the same time for their own reasons. Something being worse doesn't make something else less bad in absolute terms. Just because some might think the established floor or awful in the SW cinematic measure has been pushed lower than previously thought possible doesn't raise another entry any closer to good.
That's not what I'm saying. That's an argument for the films being rehabilitated by another film's badness. I'm saying they are being reevaluated. In other words, people are re-watching the prequels because they want to know whether they were right to criticize them so harshly, or whether it was just trendy and bullshit. That doesn't have to do with the sequels per-say, but as I will get to, it is motivated by them. For the record, even I think I was too harsh on AotC in the past, because I just found the hairjob for Obi-Wan and other little aesthetic details bothersome. But the story is fine. Anyway, a lot of people do this, and find that... yeah, actually, those films weren't half bad.
Sith in particular tends to make people's list of top 3 Star Wars films, which is an achievement. Some people might find that their previous criticisms of the films don't hold up to scrutiny; for instance, some people might find that TPM's politics aren't that damn confusing after all, and while not the most action packed portion of the movie, its mere presence adds something critical that TFA and TLJ lack entirely. For the record, still haven't seen tRoS, so I can't say whether it has politics, but I'm not counting on a man who openly dissed the prequels in his first film to bring politics back into the story in the last act.
The only role of the Disney films in this process is that of a catalyst. People watch the Disney sequels and find disappointment. Finding disappointment, they go back and binge earlier movies looking for satisfaction, pop in TPM for laughs, and come out with a new appreciation of it. Rinse and repeat for the other two Prequel movies. Or they find themselves asking hard questions about what is important in a Star Wars movie after watching the sequels and find that the criticisms they had of the Prequels seem less important after answering that question; and so can watch them again with a fresh perspective. The Sequels aren't just bad, they are bad in ways that make people question what they value in a film-- script or story-- and ultimately many people decide that story is more important, at least once they realize the two are not the same.
What is interesting is that
The Force Awakens is an example of a film that later films could have
actually rehabilitated. This is because of what specifically was bad about it: it revealed nothing. Or at least it revealed only trivial things. This is actually a first for Star Wars-- every other film revealed
something important. A New Hope revealed the most if taken alone, and the least if watched after watching the Prequels, but even after watching the prequels you get the idea that there is a rebellion against Palpatine's Empire, that the senate has been dissolved entirely, and that the son of Skywalker is indeed a potential Jedi (unprecedented because the Jedi were celibate). That's a lot of important things that you need to know moving forward. The only question The Force Awakens answers is where Luke went off to, but not why he left. Even the last minute of the film is dedicated to creating a question rather than answering one! The important thing to note here, though, is that the Mystery Boxes tie the quality of TFA to the movies that come after, which is not also true of the Prequels. If
The Last Jedi and
Rise of Skywalker had been good and provided satisfactory answers to the mysteries, even if they had to be pulled out of a hat, then the movie could have been forgiven (by the audience) as merely a film about setup. But its actually a film about nothing, just as meaningless as its title. And that's why I don't think the Disney sequels are rehabilitating the Prequels. The Prequels are rehabilitated by Revenge of the Sith, and by the original trilogy. The whole of the original six film saga is better than the sum of its parts. The sequels fail by the lack of any such cohesion between them.
As I mentioned with TFA and TLJ, while Christmas shopping for the kiddo this year there was not a prequel toy in site besides some minor lego kits. Not a single prequel action figure was on the shelf from any of the related properties. The more surprising thing was that the OT stuff vastly outnumbered the ST gear with the exception of legos (though there was plenty of OT stuff there too). OT Leia and Luck action figures for days, with a few Rey's off to the side. Anecdotal, but follow the money.
Honestly, that tells me more about the beliefs of Disney's marketing department and their lack of confidence in anything but the original trilogy than it does about the fans and their taste in toys and action figures. Lucasfilm during Lucas's tenure was exceedingly confident in their movies, and I think for good reason-- when the Prequels were still coming out, prequel trilogy toys and merch sold quite well, anecdotally speaking. Everyone seemed to want that shit, and the stores never seemed to lack for inventory.
Honestly, everything I've heard about the toy sales suggest that Disney is surprisingly incompetent at handling the merchandise side of the franchise, even though it is well known that toys were Lucas's real money maker, and a brilliant innovation. Video games too. One good game in the entire release cycle of the whole damn trilogy, and not one of them even manage to tie in to the new films? You would think people would want to play a game starring Rey, Poe, and Finn, but nooooooooope! Gots to make more games set in the Rebellion era. No wonder no one wants Rey action figures. She was
never given the same chance as Luke and Leia.