Ever since the Battlefront Collection came out I've been taking a stroll down memory lane with Star Wars, I was a huge Star Wars fan growing up and needless to say I washed my hands of it after The Last Jedi, didn't care about anything afterward and tbh the franchise is a fucking Greek tragedy now. But I'm not gonna rattle on about that cause to me: There are only six Star Wars films.

I started rewatching the films in release order starting with the original trilogy, it's crazy how my opinions change on these movies so much, I used to think A New Hope was boring, now I appreciate and respect it as the classic it is, it's just a fun movie with so many iconic moments and the score is just so energetic and powerful, perhaps I judged it too harshly. Empire is still the best Star Wars movie, no arguments here and it's crazy to think critics back then slammed it, goes to show critics have always been full of shit. Return of the Jedi I'm so split on, on one hand it's got a lot of great moments and then there's just the"what the fuck" moments. For as fun as the whole Jabba's Palace stuff is it's kind of pointless and is irrelevant to the rest of the movie and Ewoks, my god are Ewoks fucking stupid. And the Empire for that matter. Regardless it and the rest of the OT are just classic films.

The prequels however... oh man did the prequels hit different for me now, keep in mind I've seen all these movies a million times each and at different points in my life I've felt differently about them every time and despite growing up with these movies I hold no bias for them, I used to roast them and criticize them for the same thing everybody else already has, I acknowledge their flaws... but I also acknowledge the flaws of the OT, the original trilogy are very simple movies and while that's not a con, the way people talk about them making it seem like they're so complex is baffling to me cause they're not very deep films, and they're films that contradict one another constantly.

The prequels are very complex films, oh they have their dumb fun too but it's properly isolated from the main conflict going on, and the thing about Star Wars that I always finds humorous is that people want to make video essays going on about the deep narrative behind the OT when really it's all basic hero's journey shit, it does it well enough but it's not a super complex thing. People complained about the prequels having their board meetings, senate hearings and "boring shit" scenes, well dumbass that's how ACTUAL wars start, y'know? THE THING IN THE TITLE?! A lot of wars are caused because of political bullshit and the prequels reflect this, these same people claim that "Star Wars is so deep" but when asked to discuss the prequels it's often met with "those movies are too complicated, that's not what Star Wars is about." Well then which is it?!

But back to the films, The Phantom Menace is probably the most abused all because of Jar Jar and I gotta be honest, he's not even that bad, his humor works for his character and at least he has his moments of subtlety, he's not going full Looney Tunes at every moment, he still acts like a living being with thoughts and cadence, with feelings and emotion. Can't believe I'm saying this but Jar Jar is a pretty well fleshed out character, so much so that he shows up less and less as the prequels go on because well, his arc was complete, also in this modern hellscape of films having all characters basically be the comic relief with humor that bombs after bombs, it's nice to see just ONE character embody this trait and do it well. And Jake Lloyd's Anakin also got too much shit, as kid actors go he nailed all his parts, the part where he has to say goodbye to his mother is a scene I hear people losing it over cause of how heartbreaking it is. Honestly there's just so much to appreciate about all the prequel films, it borders on too much to cover because there's so much to talk about with these movies. Lightning round for all the great shit:
The score across all films is amazing
The entire cast do such great jobs with the material given
So many hype moments, Darth Maul and Dual of the Fates, Yoda fighting for the first time, the Battle on Geonosis, Jango Fett, Anakin vs Obi Wan, the memes, the pod racing scene is just electrifying, again THE MUSIC. Yoda vs. Sidious.
The absolute raw power of Anakin killing the Tuskin Raiders, it's such a fucked up part of AotC that just gets clowned on because lol Hayden Christiansen is whiny and crying, the same people that say that claim the OT is deep.
The Battle on Kashyyk, seeing the Wookie army is the kind of fan service modern Star Wars wishes it could pull off.

And something else that was a product of the prequels but not so much apart of the films was the 2003 animated Clone Wars which is PEAK Star Wars, the OT can't claim to have anything that godlike. And one last thing I have to praise is George Lucas' ability to just let a scene rock, again our modern movie hellscape has characters constantly talking and explaining shit that's happening on screen. There are so many times in these movies where the film and score are telling the story, not gonna lie but the last 5 minutes of Revenge of the Sith got me teary eyed cause they just let the score and visuals tell the story and it kind of brought me back to when Star Wars was awesome.

Honestly I kind of feel bad for kids that grew up with the sequel trilogy but I can only hope that they can forgive those movies for their sins because I sure as shit won't, at least they have Rogue One though.