10 Reasons You’re Wrong About The Star Wars Prequels

4. There Are Some Fantastic Performances Throughout

Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi
Lucasfilm

Bless Sir Alex Guinness - without him we wouldn't have Obi-Wan Kenobi - but Ewan McGregor just is Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Trainspotting and Doctor Sleep actor acts his socks off in the prequels, elevating the material and in turn redefining a beloved Star Wars character.

He's truly brilliant in those films, and the fact he'll be reprising the role alongside Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader in the Kenobi series on Disney+ is simply wonderful.

Speaking of Christensen, for all that his performance as Anakin Skywalker was met with ridicule and frequent memer-y, it isn't without its charm. A lot of the actors in the prequels are weirdly neutral (a result of Lucas' direction and some stilted writing), and Christensen bore the brunt in Episode II. However, he totally nails Anakin as a young, arrogant man - one resentful of the Jedi lifestyle and tempted by attachment - and finds added freedom in Revenge of the Sith, where his descent is made complete.

Then there's Ian McDiarmid, who so effortlessly embodies the duality of the slimy, duplicitous Palpatine and the terrifying Emperor that it's honestly scary. He's pitch-perfect across all three films, and brings a whole new dimension to the ghoulish figure who plagued nightmares in the preceding decades.

Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.