The Star Wars Prequels ruined so many of our beloved childhoods. However, for a large number of the populace (the juvenile and mentally retarded), the Prequels were "Awesome" because they had some "cool action scenes" and "cool lightsaber duels". I REJECT THAT!!! The Star Wars prequels had some of the worst action ever seen in a major motion picture. They failed so miserably that it's actually kind of hard to stomach the legions of fanboys who try to defend the Prequels. They failed because they lacked any emotional involvement from the audience.
Most Movies have some type of emotional connection to the audience. It could be a character like Batman, who we can identify with because we all experience loss and all try to find a way to channel that anger and grief, or a character like James Bond, because the character has a personality and exerts human emotions, or a character like Rhett Butler, because of the passion of the performance and the energy the role requires.
However, it is fundamentally impossible to connect emotionally with anyone in the prequels. We can't connect to Qui-Gon Jin because of the emptiness of the role and the lack of passion from Liam Neson. We can't connect emotionally to Mace Windu because all he does is spout skeptical exposition and fight people. We CERTAINLY can't connect with Jar Jar because he's more annoying than anything else on Planet Earth.
Now, I know what most of you are thinking: What About Anakin and Obi Wan? What about Yoda? What about----- Now I'm gonna stop you right there for one extremely important reason: We as an audience cannot be expected to give any thought to these characters because there is a 0% Possibility of any of them dying. When a character has a Plot Shield around him, it's very difficult, if not impossible, for the audience to care at all for him.
Part of the thrill of an action scene is the possibility of death. The possibility that one wrong move could lead to the loss of an arm, or the death of a main character. You could say that the more there is to lose, the more thrilling the fight scene. When there is absolutely no possible chance for a character to die, the fight scenes become monotonous and boring. They lose their thrill. They lose the sense of danger. There is no thrill in an action scene if there is no possibility of failure. Now, I understand that this is a prequel and we are expected to care about the events surrounding movies. However, building these movies on pre-existing characters and boring, lifeless new characters means we as an audience have nobody to either A)relate to or B) root for.
The possibility of death or failure is what makes fight scenes work, but a fight scene without emotion is even worse than one with no danger. When you take away not only the suspense but also the emotion of a fight scene by choreographing it so precisely that there is not one single move that doesn't connect and the moves are so fast that the actors have no chance to play up a reaction to anything occurring in the fight, the fight scene fails again. The core of action is the danger and the emotion, and when you take the emotion of the fight away, or prolong the fight to where the emotional thrill becomes butt-numbing boredom, the fight ceases at being entertaining and becomes a long, unbearable experience.
Take X-Men: First Class, which is very similar in concept to the Star Wars movies. However, what kept this film from falling into the same trap the Prequel Trilogy fell into is the inclusion of dynamic and well-written original characters that the audience could connect to, characters such as Havok, Darwin, Banshee, Sebastian Shawe, and Moira McTaggett. We as an audience can connect to these characters because they are interesting, well written, and they aren't boring to watch.
When the climax to X-Men: First Class came around, there was a real feeling of suspense as the possibility of the new characters dying started to creep in. The battleships all aimed their artillery at the X-Men team. Tension mounts as the explosives fly through the air towards the main characters and suddenly....Erik Lensher stops the artillery with his magnetic powers. The climax is thrilling because of the strength of the performance, the power of the writing, and the talent of the director.
All these things are lacking in the prequels. Take the Mustafar Battle from Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Here we have Anakin, the former student of Obi-Wan Kenobi, fighting his former master on the slopes of a volcano planet. This scene is so boring because 1) It is literally impossible for Obi-Wan to slip up and get horribly burned, or for that matter, either of them die in ANY way, 2) The two characters up until now have interacted in a hostile manner towards each other, despite them supposedly being best friends, however, how they have suddenly decided that they are the worst of enemies and vowing to kill one-another, and 3) The Digital Effects in this scene are so uselessly shoved in the audience's face that the entire scene feels like a bad modern-day Full Motion Video game. Nothing about this scene has any tension to it because the only thing on the audience's mind is "HOW LONG 'TILL WE SEE DARTH VADER?!!?" This scene is especially angering because, when we see Darth Vader for the chronological first time, he does this:
And with that, Star Wars finally lost all dignity.