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- [00:00]
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- [00:21]
Glenn Weldon
Back when the Star wars prequels first came out, they were polarizing. Many fans of the original trilogy hated them, though many young people experiencing George Lucas space opera for the very first time loved them then and love them still. It's been 20 years since the final prequel film Revenge of the Sith first hit theaters, so it seems like a fitting time to re evaluate, well, everything about them really. From Jar Jar Binks and the taxation of trade routes to that final climactic no that broke the Internet in half. Let's talk about it. I'm Glenn Weldon and we're revisiting the Star wars prequels on this episode of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour.
- [01:03]
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- [01:18]
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- [02:49]
Glenn Weldon
Joining Me today is pop culture happy hour producer Hafsa Fathoma. Hey, Hafsa.
- [02:54]
Hafsa Fathoma
Hi, Glenn.
- [02:55]
Glenn Weldon
Hi. Also with us is filmmaker, pop culture critic, and iHeartRadio producer Joel Monique. Hey, Joelle.
- [03:00]
Joelle Monique
Hey, Gwen.
- [03:01]
Glenn Weldon
All right, folks, as you can tell by this lineup, we are representing several generations of Star wars fans because I think that's the only useful way to talk about these movies. The Star wars prequels, the Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith follow Anakin Skywalker's transformation into Darth Vader. Anakin is played as a boy by Jake Lloyd and by Hayden Christensen. As a young man, he falls in love with queen turned senator Padme, played by Natalie Portman. Annie, my goodness, you've grown. So have you.
- [03:34]
Joelle Monique
Grown more beautiful, I mean.
- [03:37]
Glenn Weldon
Well, for a senator. I mean, he gets trained as a Jedi and gets seduced to the dark side of the Force by the kindly politician Palpatine, who is played by Ian McDiarmid. Palpatine, of course, is secretly the evil Darth Sidious. Good. As a point of view, Anakin a Seth and the Jedi are similar in almost every way, including their quest for greater power. I mean, he's not wrong. With Anakin's help, Sidious seizes control of the Republic, declares himself emperor, and wipes out most of the Jedi order. As for Anakin, he enters into a climactic duel with his mentor, Obi Wan Kenobi, played in the prequels by Ewan McGregor. You were the chosen one. It was said that you would destroy this Sith, not join them, bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness. That duel leaves Anakin so injured that only an iconic helmet and set of armor can keep him alive. Meanwhile, Padme dies in childbirth and her twins, Luke and Leia, get separated and sent off to live in hiding. Hafsa kick us off. Where did you stand on these films when you saw them? And how has that changed? Or has it changed over time?
- [04:52]
Hafsa Fathoma
So, full disclosure, I was about six years old when the Phantom Menace came out, so I didn't exactly have the best critical thought process. Are these bad movies? Objectively, yes. But did Kid Hafsa have a great time growing up with them? Yes, she did. Because as a kid, all I wanted to really see was lightsaber duels and sci fi stuff. And these movies were a big part of my life growing up. Even when I got older and I heard the critiques, I think it was too late because the movies were already pretty endeared to me. So, yes, I am a prequel Appreciator. And I can love them while also making fun of them. And they're bad, but they're my bad.
- [05:34]
Glenn Weldon
Okay, bad, but my bad. You remind me of my nieces and nephews who are pretty much your age, which is exactly the age I was when Star wars came out. So we'll talk about that. This is, I think, a very important barometer for how you, how you feel about these films in general. Joelle, I have it on good authority that you weren't sold on them when you saw them first, but you've come around on them, which is a fascinating proposition. Tell me more about that.
- [05:59]
Joelle Monique
So picture it. It's 1999, which means I'm 10 years old. So I had come up like rewatching Star wars, like when they released those on VHS and then again on dvd. We got every iteration that came out. We were watching them religiously. I was a Star War Dan. This is my first midnight screening ever. It's huge. Okay? I have the Pizza Hut cups. I am fully invested. Pod racing. I mean, just wow. It blows me away. I love the first one though. When we talk about Attack of the clones 12:13, I'm thinking a little bit higher now, a little more attune. I'm like, what's happening? And the adults around me are hating it. And so immediately I'm like, well then it's not good. I don't like it. It's bad. And then you see the third one. We are no longer doing midnight showings. The no. Which all I, I remember walking out of that movie just being like, what? Why? What's happening? It's awful.
- [06:53]
Glenn Weldon
I'm with you so far before.
- [06:54]
Joelle Monique
In a few years, I'm in high school, Clone wars is coming out. It's an animated TV show that's like, what if we explained how Anakin turned to the dark side? I think if you cherry pick certain episodes, they're so beautiful and wonderful and loving and do a lot to expand the lore of Anakin in this era that when you go back to watch these movies, you're like, haha. I saw that like side battle. Anakin and Obi Wan were sort of like mildly chit, chattering about on the side. So that's how I've come around to this idea now as an adult where I have such an appreciation for George's forward view of on film making. After this, people are flocking to doing digital film making. And while neither, let's be real, the originals or the prequels are your gold standard of film making. It's not everything you want out of movies. Both fundamentally changed how we make movies in America. Is it sometimes gaudy? Absolutely. Okay. But they were doing it at a time when no one could touch it, even Jar Jar. I have many a critique on Jar Jar, but this is our first digital character portrayed by a young black guy, and he's really pushing the limits of what you can do. And despite some of the choices made here, his physical talent is so present on screen. So it makes that character. I mean, he might still find him annoying and he fly or whatever, but it's believable that he's there in the scene. It's working. And so, from a cinematic history level, I have a lot of appreciation for. For the prequels.
- [08:29]
Glenn Weldon
This is interesting, what I'm hearing from you both, because when I saw the original trilogy, I was. Well, I was nine years old when Star wars came out. I knew it was a film for kids, but it felt adult to me because it was live action, and people died in it. And I hadn't seen that many films that were live. Everything I saw was, like, animation or Disney stuff, and I felt like I was going above my station. I was watching an adult film, even though it was pew, pew, pew and space wizards and all. And then when Empire came out, that film felt directly targeted to me, like it was a little bit more adult, a little bit more sophisticated. But something happened. What happens is these films stay the same and you change around them. Because when Jedi came out, I remember stepping out of that theater, I was 15 at that time, and thinking, I have outgrown this franchise, mostly because we spent so much time with the teddy bears, the Ewoks that I hated then, still kind of hate that. I felt like, oh, these films that stayed the same, they were always for kids. And I grew up, even though I was only 15 at the time. What I'm hearing from you, Hafsa, is an emotional reaction that stays with you. And I still have kind of a emotional reaction to those original films. But, Joelle, I'm hearing a more intellectual, critical voice kicking in, your adult, critical sense of where these films stand in film history and the use of digital. That's interesting to me. Joelle, talk to me about your emotional connection to the films. I would argue that the flaw with these films is that they're made by a director with a great eye for technical detail, but not a sense of emotional nuance at all.
- [09:57]
Joelle Monique
The dialogue is a struggle. Yes. Okay. Where's the emotional connection for this? It's in three parts, and their Names are Yoda, Obi Wan, and Padme. There's something so wonderful about Frank Oz's voice. Coveted and just guiding you as Yoda through some of these beats. One of my best memories of this franchise is when Yoda whips out the lightsaber and the audience just absolutely beside. We got to see Yoda fight. Freaking awesome. Padme. Okay. I liked Leia. Didn't love her. Thought she was really cool as a kid. But also, I was like, she's the girl. Now. Padme has a little bit of she's the girl energy, but also she gets to be a super smart girl. I love the smart girls. I love the super brilliant ones. And watching her get to be not just queen in her fabulous outfits, which, again, loved, adored, definitely tried to get my mom to let me dress up her. She was not about it. I really appreciated. Here's a young woman, and we watched her become a senator. And like, everything that Padme does, except for dating Anakin, which we will talk about later, was fabulous to me. I really loved her. And then Ewan McGregor. Honestly, I don't know if they could have gotten to a second movie without him. Maybe a third, I think. I don't think they could have gotten there without Ewan because he's just so damn charming. You just love him, I guess. Finally, I'm just a sucker for Laura. Glenn, I'm so sorry. Like, if you give me an average shot full of, like, a lot of lore, I'm gonna be invested. I'm gonna be picking it apart. I'm trying to understand, like, why are the characters making these choices and how do these things fall into place? I think that's what it is. It's really. It's those three characters plus the expansion of lore, that really worked for me.
- [11:35]
Glenn Weldon
Now, Hafsa, your experience with the Phantom Menace, I have some questions about. Because it has been over a decade since I watched the Phantom Menace. I did so just in prep for this show and the first 45 minutes of that film. Hafsa is so much Jar Jar in a way that I did not recall. It's all okie day and how wooed and exqueeze me. I had forgotten how much it is. I kind of want to defend Jar Jar Binks because the Internet came for him just as it was still developing. Like, it was just starting to bring nerds together into their little toxic clouds of hate. And I think, you know, certainly Ahmed Best, who voiced and mocapped Jar Jar, got a raw deal because he was just doing what he was hired to do. But what he was hiring to do was so much over and above kitty stuff than even the Ewoks were. And yet, at the same time, this is also a movie that gets bogged down in go into committee, and I have a vote of no confidence. So were you down with Jar Jar and the sippy cup and the whole misa wood aspect of it, or did you understand why there was so much politics?
- [12:36]
Hafsa Fathoma
So, no, at 8 years old, I did not understand what a trade federation was. It was a little hard for me to kind of get the nuance of that. But I will say, even as a kid, I found Jar Jar very annoying. I did not like the Misa dialogue. I did not like how inefficient he was. I do remember, though, that Toys R Us was full of Jar Jar Binks. So they were really, really selling that. He was hitting the shelves. So I think they were really, really pushing him as like, hey, this is like the big merchandising character. I will say that even as a kid, the Phantom Menace was perhaps my least favorite of the trilogy. A lot of it sort of went over my head at that point, but I just think that there was the concept of a good movie like Star wars isn't just about lightsabers. It's also about politics. It's also about trade rights. There's, like, a gem of a really good film in there that never quite comes through. Overall, I think George Lucas has always defended these movies as, like, it's for kids. But you can have, I think, a good kids movie without dialogue, like, are you an angel? Which I am not even kidding, is something that Anakin says to Padme when they first meet.
- [13:46]
Glenn Weldon
No, I'd forgotten about it.
- [13:47]
Hafsa Fathoma
But, yeah, there's a way to appeal to the children without making them cringe.
- [13:50]
Glenn Weldon
But there's a bigger issue here, which is, I think no matter what age we were when we saw the Phantom Menace, we can all remember where we were when we first encountered those immortal, iconic words. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.
- [14:05]
Hafsa Fathoma
What does that mean?
- [14:06]
Glenn Weldon
Look, the sentence right before that, the one that opens the crawl, is a lot better. It's like turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. And like turmoil engulf. These are active words. I could get into this. Oh, this is gonna be great. But he was tipping his hand. And some would argue, and I want to get your take on this. Some would argue that he was doing this intentionally, because over the course of these three films, one thing he does show is that fascism takes advantage of very deliberative processes like democracy. And then there's even lines in the Phantom Menace about this where Padme says, like, courts will be too slow. So while the legislature and the courts are just dithering, evil happens. Did he make that case for you guys?
- [14:44]
Joelle Monique
Lucas has been very clear about, like, what his political stance is and how he wants to wield Star wars as a visual metaphor. Specifically, Vietnam was on his mind during the original series, But I would say what he failed to do was to make that understandable to folks who have no idea about politics. As a kid, I was like, whatever. So some stuff that's happening, grown ups are fighting. It's bad politics. Okay, and now we're back. There's a romance that I fully don't understand. Weird. Okay, now the lightsabers are backing them in, and we're racing. We're now in a moment where the greatest Star wars checkout andor if you haven't yet, is making all of those things really easy to understand and really palatable. The films don't stand on their politics in that they're just not conveyed well, really, until the last film. And only kind of the spectacle is what upholds these films. The. The costumes, John Williams score, of course, and Nellie portman and Elon McGregor's performances that really keep people in their seats, Whereas the politics, I think most people were able to either just let it go by or ignore it completely.
- [15:52]
Hafsa Fathoma
The prequel trilogy is, like, orbiting these concepts, but they're not fully hitting it. And it makes you wonder what could these movies have looked like in the hands of a different director or a different screenwriter? Which, to be fair, George Lucas apparently did go to Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, and Ron Howard and asked them to take on this project of the prequels, and they all said no. And so he was kind of left to deal with these movies on his own. As I sort of grew up and got older, I started to see kind of, like, the political metaphors that this saga was dealing with. And also, if you kind of go beyond the movies, I started reading the books when I was in high school. So, like, there are a lot of books in the prequel canon. And so I think through those books and also the novelization of the Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover, which I think is one of the. The best books I've read, period. You kind of understand, like Joelle said, like, how did Anakin fall? It wasn't just because of Padme, but it was also because he slowly became disillusioned with A larger political and spiritual system that he grew up in, and then suddenly began to question and said, I don't think I believe in this anymore. And I think that's a pretty universal experience. I think many people, you know, who've grown up in certain cultures or communities have kind of grown up and said, hey, maybe this isn't for me. Maybe I don't agree with all of these values. And that really is, I think, Anakin's larger journey that I wish the films had spent a little bit more time exploring instead of like, pew, pew, pew. Stormtrooper clone.
- [17:23]
Glenn Weldon
Yeah. I will say I'm gonna give George Lucas this much was he did spend the prequel films trying to demystify the Jedi, or at least de. Idealize them, I guess, because there are a lot of folks who hate on the modern sequels, the ones with Ray, Fin and Poe, for being anti Jedi. Oh, you don't understand the Jedi Order. You make the Jedi seem out of touch and bad. Because Luke in those films is pretty anti Jedi. But these movies, the prequels, like all the others, are trapped in a black and white universe. A dark side, light side. Where do you go with that?
- [17:54]
Hafsa Fathoma
Where's the gray?
- [17:55]
Glenn Weldon
Where's the ambiguity? So in these movies, they're depicting the Jedi again, in keeping with his whole notion of a bureaucracy as the enemy, Basically, he depicts the Jedi as not corrupt, because that would be too dark side, but haughty and imperious and so sure of themselves. Which is why a lot of the stuff Palpatine says to Anakin, yeah, you can read it as, oh, it's lies and deceit.
- [18:19]
Hafsa Fathoma
But also, have you heard the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise? Best scene, I think. But no, I mean, like. Like he says in that clip we heard they are different sides of the same coin. Because there's a scene where Anakin in Revenge of the Sith, he goes to Yoda and he says, I'm scared of losing something. And this comes after he has, like, his vision of Padme dying in childbirth. He doesn't tell Yoda. That's what it is. But Yoda's response is, hey, man, like, you need to let this stuff go. And, like, be a good Jedi.
- [18:46]
Joelle Monique
Attachment leads to jealousy, the shadow of greed, that is.
- [18:53]
Glenn Weldon
What must I do, Master Yoda? Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.
- [19:02]
Hafsa Fathoma
Imagine if that conversation had gone differently. Like, maybe the entire order wouldn't have been wiped out if this order that has been so rigid for the last hundreds of years had maybe done a little introspection and evolved if they had.
- [19:15]
Joelle Monique
Gone back and actually saved his mom.
- [19:17]
Glenn Weldon
Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.
- [19:18]
Joelle Monique
They take this little boy from his mother, never go back, never allow him to visit. Even when the film seems to be trying to distinguish Jedi from Sith, it loops right back around to they're far too similar. If you think about Obi Wan's lineup, only the Sith Dylan absolutes. Which is, in and of itself an absolute.
- [19:38]
Glenn Weldon
Which is an absolute.
- [19:39]
Joelle Monique
Yes, exactly. It's like, sir, read the room. What is going on? We can now come to Padme and Anakin.
- [19:48]
Hafsa Fathoma
Yes, we can.
- [19:49]
Joelle Monique
And this romance, Was there ever a point in your watching where you were like, hey, this couple make it sense. It's hot. It's working for me.
- [19:57]
Hafsa Fathoma
Even as a small child.
- [19:58]
Joelle Monique
Me either. As a small young lady, I was like, no, ma' am.
- [20:03]
Hafsa Fathoma
I was deeply uncomfortable with Anakin staring at Padme, Padme saying, please don't look at me this way. And then Anakin proceeding to creep on her for, like, an entire movie. They roll around in a grass field.
- [20:18]
Joelle Monique
She's a senator.
- [20:19]
Hafsa Fathoma
They fight a battle together, and then they get married. And, you know, three years later.
- [20:24]
Joelle Monique
And why. Yeah, this, to me, is the biggest failing of this series because it relies so heavily on that storyline working.
- [20:34]
Hafsa Fathoma
Yes, I'm convinced about why he fell in love with her because he' had this 10 year obsession with her. Why does she fall in love with him? Like, where does that change that part?
- [20:42]
Glenn Weldon
I have an answer.
- [20:43]
Joelle Monique
Okay, okay, okay, give it to us.
- [20:44]
Glenn Weldon
As I watched these recently, I was struck by the first time I brought these on home video. And I listened to the George Lucas commentary track. And I was struck then and now by how much time he spends commenting on the dry technical aspects of every shot. How he could do something now that he could Never do in 1977. How much of this or that set was purely digital, purely cgi? If he ever mentioned things like story, characters, motivation, emotions, even though he was the one responsible for them, he was the one writing them, I don't remember it. This is a director with an eye for technical detail instead of emotional truth. And there's not much new to say about Hayden Christensen in these films. Can we give him the benefit of the doubt, though? Can we say that, like, the character of Darth Vader had already entered the public consciousness in such a major way that there was no way any actor, much less Hayden Christensen, who has been good in other things, could bridge that gap in our minds?
- [21:36]
Joelle Monique
I'm gonna defend my boy here, please. Do I love me some Hayden Christensen? And I really feel there's a lack of directing that is responsible for what we end up in the end role. There's like key moments where you're like, this kid is tuned in that I hate you.
- [21:49]
Hafsa Fathoma
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [21:50]
Joelle Monique
Visceral. It sends chills out my spine every time. Like, that's real. Like, he's in that moment when he comes, comes back after his mom has passed and he's just talking to Padme about, like, what his future looks like now. And that single. He almost gets a Denzel worthy single tear down his face. I'm like, he's in it. They just make him start at rage and they never differentiate. So as an actor, he has nowhere to go. He's trapped without these little touches, these you can't get. Like in Empire Strikes Back, one of the greatest Star wars films of all time is so keyed into. I mean, if you look at the Leia and Han scene, their romance scene, it's really soft. Just a couple of lines here and there so that you're completely leaning into, like, oh, my God, these two are like, it's real. Even when you get these sort of isolated moments with them, it reads as so silly, almost as if they're not talking to each other, which frequently feels like they're not talking to each other about the same time. And we've seen these actors do that really well. And it takes a lot to make Natalie look not great in a movie. And I don't mean physically. I mean, not like she's performing well. She's so extremely talented. And there are moments in here where I'm like, I'm not sure she's fully in this scene. And that's bizarre.
- [23:07]
Hafsa Fathoma
I have to defend my fellow Canadian in the media. We gotta stick together. But I also have to say, like, Natalie Portman was only a few years away from winning, like, the Oscar for Black Swan. You have Ewan McGregor, you have Ian McDiarmid, who is really Hannah Montana ing this Darth Sidious thing. Like when he puts the hood on, he's a Sith Lord, but then he takes the hood off and he's the chancellor. I'm like, really? Like, nobody spotted this, but, you know, there is again, like, the potential of this cast to have been so good, but they're really working with what they have. I don't think Hayden was in the same, you know, category of being as good as an actor, as someone like Ewan McGregor, to be honest. But that script did not do them any Favors, right?
- [23:51]
Joelle Monique
And he's so much better when he's there. Like, in the opening scenes of Revenge of the Sith, when they're, like, just going around being brother. They're. They're like homies. They're like, okay, we're gonna do this one. We gotta do the other thing. It. They're so fun to watch. Like, that entire, like, sequence of them.
- [24:06]
Hafsa Fathoma
Is a good one.
- [24:07]
Joelle Monique
Being together is great. And the minute you pull them apart, it's just like, my God, it's static over here. The energy is gone. I could have used another movie of this so that that ending hits a little bit harder.
- [24:17]
Hafsa Fathoma
So I wanted to say, like, I think also, Star wars is not just the movies or the books or the shows, but it's also about the community that we've built around, like, these movies and this legacy. And it's been really lovely to see Hayden Christensen embraced at things like Star wars celebration. I went to the 20th anniversary release of the Revenge of the Sith, and I watched it in theaters again, and it was like coming home. Like, it was amazing. I've watched this movie so many times, and it was really funny to see all of the scenes that had become memes over the years, like, anakin, you're breaking my heart, or this is where the fun begins. People were applauding and cheering, and they wrote lightsabers. So just kind of seeing that community come back and embrace these films and, you know, like me, not think they're the best things to have happened to the cinema, but also appreciate them for what they are. That's been really heartening to see.
- [25:05]
Glenn Weldon
That's great. Well, you've heard three different journeys with the Star wars prequels, and now we want to know what your journey was. Two things. Where did you start out with these, and where are you now? Find us@facebook.com PCHH and that brings us to the end of our show. Joelle, Monique, Hafsa Fathoma, thank you so much for being here.
- [25:23]
Joelle Monique
Thank you, Glenn.
- [25:24]
Hafsa Fathoma
Thank you, Glenn. And I want to say that sand is rough, coarse, and irritating.
- [25:28]
Joelle Monique
Not like Eli.
- [25:29]
Glenn Weldon
It certainly is. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and Hafsa Fathoma and edited by Jessica Reedy. Mike Katseff and hello. Kamin provides our theme music. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy hour from npr. I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all next time.
- [25:46]
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