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

8. The Jedi Robes

The prequels relied heavily on the Original Trilogy's imagery, although given how nit-picky fans jumped on anything new for "not looking like Star Wars" (see Queen Amidala's make-up) that's not a terrible thing. For the most part it was a marriage of styles - the world of the newer films felt different, but there were enough overarching design styles (the spiders-web of a TIE cockpit, S-foils, crackly blue holograms) that made the CGI inflected prequels just about gel with the originals.

One thing that really shouldn't have been brought over, however, is the Jedi robes. For the whole religion Lucas essentially look Obi-Wan and Yoda and extrapolated them into a whole culture, even elements that came from that duo's exile. Surely Jedi weren't stoic and reclusive by nature, but because the two you saw in the earlier movies were defeated and in hiding.

Although that's nothing compared to the robes. In A New Hope Obi-Wan is wearing moth-eaten desert clothing because he's living in the middle of a desert - he's blending in. It's coincidental and plain stupid for him to be wearing traditional Jedi clothing, which is exactly what the prequels imply.

There's a few slight digressions from that style - Anakin's Clone Wars getup is black leather, preempting his later turn, and a couple of the background Jedi have less flowing capes - although they're still in the same general design and colour as the rest.