PREVIEW： The Star Wars Prequels Are Great, Actually
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Summary
The Dark Lord of the Sith himself, Dr. Nima Parvini ( ) joins us to discuss the prequel trilogy, and the criticism of it by the internet, as well as some of the reasons why the prequels have been unfairly maligned.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome to this premium video. Thank you for joining us. I am Harry, your host, joined today by Luca.
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And the Dark Lord of the Sith himself, Dr. Nima Parvini. Thank you very much for joining us today.
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And we're going to be talking about the Star Wars prequel trilogy and the reassessment and re-evaluation of the film's quality that's been going on over the past few years,
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the discourse leading up to that, and just generally the overall quality of them.
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And I think all three of us are going to be in agreement that these films have been unfairly maligned.
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The criticism that was applied to them early on when they had been released and in the early years of internet discourse was bad faith and very unfair.
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And actually when you re-evaluate them and watch them with a more objective eye today, they not only hold up much better than you expect,
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but there are many arguments to be made that these are fantastic films.
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And just to give a little backstory for this, so over the past few weeks I just decided over the Christmas period to re-watch the full Star Wars films
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and I decided to do them as you are supposed to do, as George Lucas intended, which is to watch them in episode order.
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And I went through a phase when I was a teenager, as many did, of having watched the Plinket reviews around the time that they came out.
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And I was a stupid, impressionable teenager and had been told by all of them that they're really great film reviews,
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they're great critiques, they'll make you see the films in a whole different light.
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And because of the way that the reviews were presented, and because of the way that it was a new form of criticism that I'd not seen online before,
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But it's been so many years removed from it now that I thought, I'll give them another fair chance.
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And not only did I go into them and find that I really enjoyed them,
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I found that I enjoyed the prequels more than the originals.
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I genuinely appreciated them more than the originals, both in terms of their construction,
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in terms of the overall narrative they were trying to construct and trying to tell,
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and the greater themes that they were discussing as well,
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which are interesting and complex on a level the originals were not.
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Perhaps controversially as well, I would even dare suggest that the characters of Obi-Wan, Anakin, Padme,
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People always just go to Han, Luke, and Leia as the iconic trio.
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But I think that there are many really, really good characters in the prequels as well that are, yeah, overshadowed.
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And there's a lot of nuance to their arcs and motivation, which is skipped over.
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But now, Nima, again, thank you very much for joining us on this.
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I'd like to give you a moment to introduce your thoughts on this,
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because you said when you joined the call this is one of your favourite subjects to discuss,
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and you have been a prequel defender for years up to this point.
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I've seen for years going back on Twitter and elsewhere,
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you've spoken about the prequels and you've been carrying the torch for them for a long time.
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Yeah, and also for my sins, I am the principal pioneer online of what I call Palpatine revisionism,
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which we can get on to as well, because, I mean, in my view, you know,
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I mean, I talked to you in the past about Shakespeare and his great history cycle.
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And when I used to lecture on the history plays,
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I'd always say that, much like George Lucas, Shakespeare wrote the history plays out of order, right?
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He started with Henry VI, and then he wrote the prequel Tetrology afterwards.
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So there's, but they are a kind of masterpiece of political playwriting, okay?
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And then we can go forward and look at the novel form, War and Peace,
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And for me, the prequel trilogy is our equivalent of Shakespeare's history plays
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It is the political masterpiece of our time, told over a series of films.
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and now there is some things to say about George Lucas.
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But despite all of that, he is dealing with such deep themes and such important political themes,
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that even despite himself, he actually ends up telling the story of what Polybius called the anacyclosis,
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something I discuss in my book, The Prophets of Doom,
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where you actually get to see a republic in decay, a bureaucracy that is atrophied,
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a Jedi order that has started to defend something that is arid and spiritually bankrupt,
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and the need for a new order to be established, represented by Palpatine.
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Because George Lucas is a boomer and has boomer values and so on,
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he sees this as a bad thing in some sort of way.
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But I think that even despite that, the films are well made enough and well written enough
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that these things that I'm talking about are explored in real and quite surprising depth.
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And when I say quite surprising depth, I am somebody who has kept spreadsheets
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on the construction of the Jedi Council over time, okay?
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So like in the Phantom Menace, you know, you've got Yaddle sitting there,
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and Yari, who's the one with the long neck, okay?
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And you can actually watch the Jedi Council decline in real time, okay?
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You can actually watch it decline, and, you know, people elevated to the Council
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So by the time you get to Revenge of the Sith, the Jedi Order itself, right,
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has kind of, I mean, what is it even defending by that point, okay?
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It's almost, yeah, and what Lucas does is he actually gives you an insight into it.
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We watch Obi-Wan Kenobi go to that library and deal with it.
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Do you remember that woman with a little pin in her hair?
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And, you know, if you watch the Lucas commentaries, he's like, yeah,
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we will worry that this bit was going on too long.
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But it was important because one of the reasons it's important is the Jedi
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They'd so lost their way that now this woman who's meant to be, let's not forget,
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She's meant to be a keeper of this spiritual order.
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She is devolved into being a mere bureaucrat, an empty suit, okay?
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And in a way, a lot of the problem people have with the prequels are things
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like, you know, Yoda's midi-chlorian speech, okay?
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But if you think about it in these terms, yeah, the Jedi stuff is going to feel
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less special and demystified because they've lost sight of what matters.
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And in a sense, I mean, the whole saga is meant to be about Anakin bringing
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But let's not forget, I mean, I think prequel trilogy are as much Palpatine
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Palpatine is a kind of great man of galactic history, if you want to put it
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He's the primary driver of all of the events that happen in the prequels.
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So there is an argument to be made that he is the protagonist in that his
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But you see, the thing is, in order for there to be balance in the Force,
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quote-unquote, Palpatine needed to do those things.
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If you think about it in terms of Thomas Carlyle, you know, he says of the
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Bourbon order, the old enchantment regime, it had gone rotten.
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Now, you can say, well, all sorts of bad things happened in the French
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Revolution, but the fact is it needed to be swept aside, right?
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Napoleon, good or bad, he did a function for France.
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And in a way, you could say, well, even if some of the things that Palpatine
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ends up doing are evil, quote-unquote, and we can debate that,
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it kind of, like, in order for the prophecy to be fulfilled, that needed to
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happen because the state of the Jedi Order that we find it under Yoda, I mean,
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But anyway, the fun thing I find about that is that I've seen so many people
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since I've put out my takes on Twitter that generated a wild amount of
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controversy, and I do need, as we get into this, to talk about the fans and the
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culture that emerged around the films and the prequels as well.
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Because the amount of investment that some people have in their personal egos in
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hating the films, being the right opinion, is absurd to me.
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One of the complaints that I've seen is that people say that, yes, it demystified
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the Jedi Order, but that having watched the original trilogy first, they had in
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their minds this noble idea of kind of a Knights of the Round Table situation where
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And I'm not just saying this with the hindsight of the prequels existing now to give you
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all of this backstory, but we already know by the time of the originals without the
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Whatever it was that they were trying to uphold in the Galactic Republic had failed.
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Well, because it's an empire now, and because Obi-Wan has been exiled to the far reaches
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of the corners of the galaxy, and Luke Skywalker, being Anakin Skywalker's son, has had to be
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hidden from him because his father fell to the dark side.
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And then look at the actions of Obi-Wan and Yoda in Empire and in Return of the Jedi, right?
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Their advice to Luke is terrible because they are still going with this kind of outdated,
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irresponsible idea, which is the same thing that helped Anakin to fall to the dark side
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in the prequels, that you must divest yourself of all personal attachments, all personal
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You must become a spiritual nomad and a hermit.
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Only then will you be able to achieve your destiny.
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It's through nurturing his relationship with Anakin at the end of The Return of the Jedi
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that Anakin is able to be pulled back into doing the right thing and destroying the Emperor.
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And then by the time you go back to the prequels and you see that this is the same mindset,
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this is the same behavior that pushed Anakin away from them.
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Because what you see, and people like to say the writing is one note, the characters were terrible,
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One of the most concerningly stupid things I've ever heard people argue is that Anakin
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Which is absurd because he is conflicted, he makes poor decisions.
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Yeah, he's reckless, he's pulled between different worlds.
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People forget that a Mary Sue is not just somebody who is powerful,
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it's somebody who also makes the right decision all the time and is loved by everybody around them
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But Anakin in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith
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is pulled between the advice of, well, the tradition of the Jedi,
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this whole idea of divest yourself of your feelings,
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who is saying that, no, you should care about your feelings,
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I understand why you are worried, especially in Revenge of the Sith.
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He's very paternal towards Anakin, whereas there's that scene in Revenge of the Sith,
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Anakin's already been, he's taken away from his mother in Phantom Menace,
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the Jedi do nothing, the Republic does nothing to solve the slavery problem on Tatooine.
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So he's taken away from his mother at nine years old,
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which clearly the attachment issues traumatize him.
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Attack of the Clones, he has premonitions and dreams that his mother will die,
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that turn out to be true because she dies in his arms.
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he's having those same premonitions and dreams about Padme,
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who he cares about, who he loves, she's his wife,
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And so he goes to Yoda and he doesn't say exactly that that's what's going on,
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but he says, I'm having all of these issues, I have these doubts and fears.
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If you're going to be one with the Force, just like meditate on it and you'll feel fine.
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Whereas he goes to Palpatine with those same issues,
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If you join me, you can actually maybe find a way to fix those problems,
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to prevent the people that you love from dying.
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So I was watching them and going, yeah, the Jedi Order is corrupt.
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There's a scene in Revenge of the Sith where, you know,
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Palpatine is saying they're going to usurp my power to Anakin,
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and it's presented, well, some people present it like he was just being paranoid or lying to Anakin.
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No, Mace Windu says at one point, we're going to have to usurp Palpatine
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and take power to, quote unquote, ensure a peaceful transfer of power.
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So if I was in Anakin's position, I would say, yes, there is a conspiracy against Palpatine.
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And Palpatine actually does care about me more than this ancient order
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that's supposed to be so spiritual and in touch with the force in the galaxy.
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I would have sided with Palpatine in Anakin's position as well, frankly.
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And I think the film presents a very strong and nuanced case,
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So there's actually a great through line from the prequels to what you see in the originals.
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And that's why I think that as a full six film piece, the prequels improve the originals.
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It's a full story in that George Lucas wanted to tell it as a full story.
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Just one thing to add as well, what you were saying about the corruption of the Jedi Order as well.
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I feel like this is such an important part of why Qui-Gon Jinn is at the beginning of the story, right?
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Because when you have all of these Jedi like Mace Windu, like DEI hires like Yaddle and, you know,
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people who become institutionally captured, which even happens to Kenobi, right?
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Kenobi, if it had followed Qui-Gon's teachings, would have stopped chasing the approval of the institutions
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And so in the, because really you're looking at, what is it?
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The Republic has stood for a thousand years, ten thousand years, a long, long time, right?
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And so we are looking at it absolutely at the end, you know, late, late, late Republic stage.
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And so we see all of the rot and the corruption.
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And so I think it really makes sense to have that one Jedi character in there
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who actually shows you the ideal of what a Jedi should be.
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And that is someone who rises above the politics, who is entirely at service to the will of the force.
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Who is happy to defy the council if it's what he knows right.
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And that's the tragedy of the end of The Phantom Menace.
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Qui-Gon could have been the father figure that Anakin was pushed to Palpatine.
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And that's part of why it is true, Obi-Wan failed him.
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And in fact, you said what I was going to say, which is that the film actually builds in the critique.
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Another one, let's not forget, is Count Dooku, who's clearly somebody with higher ideals.
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Somebody who has become disillusioned genuinely.
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With the Jedi Order and with the Republic, which is like, why are the, why are the Jedi defending this rotten Republic?
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And the film actually showed, the films show us how much in decline, like when he goes, when Qui-Gon goes to see Watto.
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And he's like, well, we don't want your Republic credits here.
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Because we can actually see the currency has become worthless, you know, in the outer rim.
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So I think Dooku is also put in there as a kind of, because I don't think Dooku is a straightforward, this guy is just an evil so-and-so.
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He's clearly a noble character with ideals, and I think it's suggested that he may have been Qui-Gon's mentor.
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He was Qui-Gon's master, and Qui-Gon was his apprentice.
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Which is probably why, when there's the scene where Obi-Wan is being held captive by Dooku, Dooku says to him,
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Qui-Gon would have been able to see where I'm coming from.
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Because it's also implied in that, that Dooku is not working for Sidious purely because of the fact that he's a bad guy and wants what Palpatine wants.
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Like all Sith master-apprentice dynamics, the likelihood would have been that Dooku at some point would have tried to usurp Palpatine so that he could reform the Republic because he knew how corrupt it was.
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He just never got the opportunity because Palpatine got Anakin to take care of him before he could.
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But this is something else I wanted to point to, right?
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The films also show us Palpatine running through different apprentices.
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Now Anakin, after he has the fight with Obi-Wan, that gets cut in half, is a busted flush, right?
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Palpatine could have just done away with him at that point, but he sticks with him, right?
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I know you can go to novels and comics and stuff where he's got 15 apprentices and so on.
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As you see it in the films, he doesn't get rid of, he sticks with Vader.
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It sticks with Anakin, which shows some sort of genuine care on Palpatine's heart.
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This is something else that is worth mentioning when it comes to why it is the Republic fell and the order of Palpatine comes, is that you actually watch Palpatine and you see it in Anakin.
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But this is also happening at a kind of galaxy wide level, right?
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Like, why would you live and fight and die for the Republic?
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Yoda goes to that place and he's got, what is he, enlists the army of the clones or whatever?
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So they're already having a problem with military recruitment, if you want to put it this way.
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Whereas Palpatine, when he comes in, he actually gives a meaning and a purpose and an order to people's lives.
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But if you accept the Disney canon as well, you accept the sequels, you actually see what Leia and Han and Luke, right?
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They collapse the empire and they build nothing because they don't have, like, whatever those values of the old Republic were that led to the collapse in the first place, you can't build a new order on San.
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It just falls apart again and then you end up with the first, whatever they call it, the first order or whatever, comes in again afterwards.
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So to me, what is interesting in the films is that you actually see the reasons for the decline and you see the reasons for why the new order succeeded, you know, at least initially, because people actually wanted to fight and die for Palpatine.
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And you gave them something to believe in, whereas it was almost impossible.
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And the last thing I want to say is that as well as Qui-Gon and Dooku as critique characters, Lucas also gives us a lot of examples of the Jedi having atrophy.
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I think the banner, like, the kind of, is Kai Adimundi, right?
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He is shown consistently as, like, the number three.
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You know, it's Yoda, Windu, and then there's Kai Adimundi.
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And he can't, like, they're sitting around, dark side clouds everything.
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And they've, like, when I say they've lost their way, this is not me kind of reading the film against the grain.
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And I think it's, we're meant to think these things as we're watching it.