Star Wars: 12 Stupid Decisions From The Prequels That Actively Ruin The Originals

Thinking, what were they?

Star Wars Plot Holes
Lucasfilm

If you're a Star Wars fan, you've probably seen the movies more times than you'd like to admit. You can recite all six opening crawls word-for-word (and are working on The Force Awakens), know the where the end-lines of every matte painting/CGI backdrop are and can even immediately point out that shot in Jabba's Palace where Boba Fett's sticky-up bit (seriously, what's that for?) is on the wrong side due to shot mirroring.

And, when watching the prequels, you can pick out every moment that contradicts the world set up in the Original Trilogy. Because while you've watched Star Wars to point of being able to replay the movies in your head shot-for-shot (where no Special Editions can ruin them), their creator certainly hasn't. In interviews George Lucas time-and-again makes simple factual slip ups that would make any serious fan cringe. Does he even know what a Star Destroyer is?

In fact, looking at some of the narrative decisions he made on the prequels, it not clear if Lucas even rewatched them once before writing the scripts. The broad strokes of the story - the Clone Wars happen, the Republic falls and Anakin becomes Darth Vader - are there, but all those throwaway hints at the history of the galaxy that pepper the three classics are, quite often, totally ignored, or interpreted in totally opposite ways to how they were meant.

The Star Wars prequels got more right that some people would like to admit, but one place where it really mucked up was in being reverential to the classic movies that spawned it. Here are twelve of the biggest, most head-scratching decisions from the Star Wars prequels that actually have a negative impact on the beloved Original Trilogy, reworking the implications of certain lines and needlessly diverting from the set-up story.

Honourable Mention - Midi-Chlorians

Lucasfilm

Do you hate midichlorians? Well get over yourself - not only were they part of Lucas' original plan for the series, their sudden reference don't do anything that destructive.

Force ability was already a quantifiable thing - there were clearly varying degrees of having it "with" you - and these microscopic life forms are merely a more mathematical measure of that. They don't turn ruin the mysticism of the Force (it's a wholly fantastical concept anyway, so they couldn't really), instead they broaden the scope of the universe without offending anything in the originals - exactly what any prequel should do. Yes, it's new mythology, but that's far from bad.

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Contributor

Film Editor (2014-2016). Loves The Usual Suspects. Hates Transformers 2. Everything else lies somewhere in the middle. Once met the Chuckle Brothers.