Why letting go of my hatred of the prequels is not easy

I have been a Star Wars fan for almost 40 years as A New Hope came out when I was 6 years old. So, this goes back a LONG time. My love for these movies is immense, and it helped shape a large part of who I am as a person. Which is why I am so damn excited with the Force Awakens that is coming out, as the feel of them reminds me of the originals. Also, if you have not watched Rebels. Do it. Forget that it is on the Disney Channel as there is a lot of awesome there.

Then there are the prequels. There is not a person alive that can convince me that these movies are anything other than awful. That is just me. If you love them? That is awesome. The more people love Star Wars, the better it is. I just really don’t like them at all.

But it is time to let that go. They are a part of canon, and not every part of them were awful. But first a bit as to why they have been such a sore point all these years. 

I was really excited that there were new movies, but it was tempered by the fact they were telling a story I already knew the ending to. To be fair, I don’t really like prequels in much of anything. I ended up seeing the Phantom Menace five times, and it went from thinking it was good to wondering if I liked it at all.

I am also in the minority in the fact that I think the Phantom Menace the least awful of the three. It has two things the others did not Qui Gon Jinn and Darth Maul. Of course, they both died, which to this day I feel like was a huge mistake to have your two most interesting characters die in the first movie.

I honestly felt like the next two movies were worse. Where they tried to push a love story that in the best of times was just creepy as hell. Not to mention diminishing Padme from a good character in 1, and a love struck mess afterwards. As for Revenge of the Sith.  I walked out of that movie on opening night. Really did not like it at all.

It is why I never watched the Clone Wars as they reminded me of everything I hated about them. I am watching it now, and to be fair there still are a few things I don’t like about them that are directly related to them. The top three are: how dumb Grievous is, how inept the battle droids are, and yes, Jar Jar. But those things aside, I am really enjoying it so far. I love how portrait Anakin in the show and you can see his slide into madness. This is handled pretty well. And I love Ahsoka Tano.

But now the new movies are coming out, and with that comes reflection. I am actually kind of embarrassed with how for so many years I got caught up in heated arguments about the merit of the prequels. Instead of just being glad that other people were fans of this series, we would just argue about it. It is something I still see as people are so quick to dismiss the movies (I know this cuz I have done this in the past). Then arguments ensue.

So, as I said above, I am letting it go. Love what you love.

The bottom line is this. For far TOO long there has been two camps of Star Wars fans. Ones that love the original, and ones that love the prequels. There should only be one camp. Those that love Star Wars and who cares about the rest.

So, there are less than two weeks until the Force Awakens comes out. Let’s come together as fans and just enjoy this amazing thing we all love so much.