Everyone knows that the first three Star Wars films of the original trilogy were better than the prequels, Episodes I and II. Although The Phantom Menace is the ‘Weakest Link’ of the Star Wars films, Attack of the Clones was much better. Viewers complained that Jar Jar Binks and the whiny Anakin in TPM were obnoxious and the movie was more like a kids movie. Fact is, it’s not as good as the older films, but in my mind, it’s still a Star Wars movie and one that I can enjoy just as much as all the others, but it just wasn’t done as good as the others. It failed to win any Academy Awards, although it was nominated for three awards. Then Attack of the Clones came out in 2002, and people liked it much better than TPM. It was a better movie, done well, a better story, and more of a ‘Star Wars’ feel to it, which TPM seemed to lack here and there. But many people still thought that that AOTC wasn’t top notch, like the original trilogy. It has been criticized for having bad dialogue and bad acting, something that TPM got criticized about as well, although TPM was marked down for much more than just that. When the nominees for the Academy Awards were released, I was disappointed that AOTC was only nominated for one category, Visual Effects of course. I knew that it wasn’t as good quality movie as the older ones, but I still thought it was good enough to have a chance at Sound Effects Editing, or maybe Costume Design. Besides, since TPM got nominated for three Oscars (Visual Effects, Sound, and Sound Effects Editing), I thought that AOTC would at least match that since it was better than TPM. It may just be that since all the new things done in TPM were already seen, the material in AOTC wasn’t too appealing. Maybe when the Academy sees something for the first time, they like it cause it’s so new, but once they’ve seen something similar, it’s not as good anymore.
I was over confident that AOTC would win the award for Visual Effects. As the Oscars started and the award
was read aloud by Keanu Reeves, I didn’t have hardly any doubt in my mind that AOTC wouldn’t win. As he read
the words, “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” I slammed my fist into the armrest of my couch. Gollum was
impressive in the movie,
and the people responsible for creating him in the movie should be recognized for their nice
work, but I still expected AOTC to win. All the Star Wars movies revolved around
I only hope that George Lucas won’t let us down with Episode III. From what I know, and all the great events that have to happen in the upcoming film, it will most likely be better than AOTC, but will it be an Oscar winner? I hope so, but I’m not confident it will. I still love all of the Star Wars films, but I just wish they’d step it up a notch and produce a movie as good quality as the original three. Or at least the winners of the Oscars would be determined fairly. Will the prequels of Star Wars ‘strike out’ at the Oscars?
- Obi-Wan Kenobi, Webmaster
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