5. The Star Wars Prequels (1999, 2002, 2005)
Yes, I'm cheating a bit, but let's be honest: we all know the
Star Wars prequels were too long. Tackling any one of the prequels in isolation would be selling them short, just as I'd be selling you short if I devoted three entries on this list to taking apart each one in turn. And yes - "selling short," pun intended. The prequels are particularly egregious in terms of their length. Not only does George Lucas not need two-and-a-half hours for each film, he doesn't need the best part of eight hours in order to tell a single story. The entire purpose of the prequels, their only relevant narrative aspect, is showing how Anakin Skywalker went to the Dark Side and became the Darth Vader that we know from the originals. If we're being generous, Anakin's transformation could have been handled in 90 minutes, assuming that Lucas had a grasp of Machiavellian politics or character development (which is assuming a lot). Even if you felt that
Revenge of the Sith was perfectly fine, the rest of the prequels are just pointless back-story to get us to this point. Nothing in
The Phantom Menace,
Attack of the Clones or
Revenge of the Sith makes any sense without knowing the end-point in advance, and even then it doesn't always help us get there quicker. That's an awful lot of time and money wasted on getting us absolutely nowhere: it wouldn't be tolerated in a stand-alone film, and it shouldn't be tolerated when it takes up most of a trilogy.