Star Wars: 10 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About The Prequels

Special effects are just a tool, a means of telling a story. People have a tendency to confuse them as an end to themselves. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing. – George Lucas, 1983

With the new digital technology, pretty much whatever I can imagine I can do. – George Lucas, 2002

A lot is made of these seemingly contrasting quotes but they’re not mutually exclusive. The key words are “story” and “imagine”. Ultimately, it all comes back to narrative. Which is the root of the problems with the Prequels, not the effects that were used.

The effects techniques used in the Prequels were built around the story, not the other way around. The behind the scenes documentary for The Phantom Menace shows decisions being made on the ratio of practical to digital effects after the entire film had been written and story-boarded.

But the biggest thing to consider is that most of the problems with the Prequels are completely independent of technology. The climax of The Phantom Menace, the one sequence we know that George Lucas saw as flawed, suffers because of four tonally different sequences running alongside each other.

A problem that would be the same regardless of scale or complexity. Likewise, the battle of Geonosis being between two faceless armies would still be a problem if costumed actors and puppets were used, and the battle was half the size.

When it comes to the Prequels, scale and technology seem like an easy scapegoat. But like Lucas said all those years ago, they’re a means to an end. It’s just that the end wasn’t as good this time around.