Nostalgia for the Star Wars Prequels Will Never Leave Me

I come from a generation of Star Wars fans who grew up going to the cinema to see the prequels when we were children. For years, we were mocked if we said we liked the prequels a lot, and there was a lot of hatred for the George Lucas-directed films. But, to me, the love I have for the prequels is the same love that older fans who saw the Original Trilogy in theaters have.

Look at it this way: If you got to go and see the OT in theaters, you have those memories. For the kids who got to go see the Sequel Trilogy in theaters, they’re probably going to have that same nostalgia towards the movies when they get older, and so now that it has been nearly fifteen years since Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith was released, it is beautiful to see how much our love of the prequels has grown.

For me personally, I look back at the quality of those storylines and recognize them for what they are. I know they’re not the best Star Wars movies, but that doesn’t change the fact that they were my trilogy. Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith all came out from the time I was seven until I was thirteen years old. A core part of my growing up was watching them with my brothers and then my friends, so yes, I look back on them and see them for the mess that they are, but at the time, I enjoyed them because I was just a kid.

I think we often forget that Star Wars is also meant for children. So yeah, Jar Jar Binks was annoying but he was funny and something I could quote and giggle at when I was seven years old. Anakin was hot when I was thirteen because that’s what I was into at that moment. I wanted to be Padme because she was strong and had cool outfits. I think that, sometimes, we forget all this to be like, “WELL IN THE GREATER CONTEXT OF THE LORE,” rather than just enjoying them for what they meant to us as children.

I felt a giddy kind of excitement when I realized that I’m going to meet both Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen at a convention this year, because those were two of the core members of my trio. So much of my childhood and early teens were spent talking about these movies that now, as an adult, I can’t help but look fondly on them.

Are they great? Absolutely not. I have many problems with them. and even my favorite (which is Revenge of the Sith) is extremely sexist in a lot of ways, but that being said, I did spend the entire summer of its release in a movie theater watching it over 10 times.

The prequels, while not cinematic masterpieces, mean a lot to me, and I’m extremely interested to see how this generation of Star Wars fans looks back on the sequel trilogy and their feeling towards them fifteen years from now.

(image: Lucasfilm)

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