Overarching statement about the prequel movies: the story, the casting, and the production are all extremely good. The writing, the directing, and the editing (not coincidentally, the parts Lucas handled himself, whereas in the original trilogy he either had help or had other people take over completely) are all much weaker.
Two more specific comments: AOTC was Hayden Christensen's first major role, he got absolutely no direction from Lucas, and he didn't have the experience to bring more to the part like Portman and McGregor did. Also, the droid foundry sequence is completely pointless and should have been adapted into some kind of action sequence that actually served the plot.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regna
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-24 05:13 (UTC)Overarching problem with AOTC: there was a lot of blowback about there being too much politics in TPM, with the result that there is not enough politics in AOTC. Obi-Wan's space Nancy Drew plotline is actually extremely relevant, but not in a way that's clear, and Padmé being sidelined on Naboo and Tatooine takes screentime from what's happening on Coruscant.
Additionally, AOTC has the same problem as TLJ, which is that a key vertex of the trio (Obi-Wan/Padme and Finn/Poe, respectively) is split up because the writer couldn't figure out how to have them on screen together without their chemistry being too obvious. The result is that Obi-Wan and Padmé have two scenes together without Anakin in the entire saga (three if you count another one that was cut from ROTS), all of them about Anakin in some way. And that's it. I've never seen any of the Lucasfilm types talk about this, but the fact that it extends into TCW is strong evidence that this came from George himself, especially since at one point during the writing of AOTC he was reportedly considering doing a full-blown love triangle. Which I don't endorse per se, but would have solved that problem of them being two key figures who never interact. (In ESB, by contrast, the trio is split up for reasons that make sense within the plot and support the overarching conflict of the story.)
Two more specific comments: AOTC was Hayden Christensen's first major role, he got absolutely no direction from Lucas, and he didn't have the experience to bring more to the part like Portman and McGregor did. Also, the droid foundry sequence is completely pointless and should have been adapted into some kind of action sequence that actually served the plot.