Pop Culture Happy Hour - The Star Wars Prequels

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

When the Star Wars prequels came out, they were polarizing for fans of George Lucas' beloved space opera. The three films - The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith – followed Anakin Skywalker's transformation into Darth Vader. It's been 20 years since the final prequel hit theaters, so it seems like a fitting time to reevaluate the movies.Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

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's space opera for the very first time, loved them then and loved 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 reevaluate, well, everything about them, really, from Jar Jar J.J.R. Binks and the Taxation of Trade Roots 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. Joining me today is Pop Culture Happy Hour producer Hafsa Fathema. Hey, Hafsa. Hi, Glenn. Hi. Also with us as filmmaker, Pop Culture Critic and I Heart radio producer, Joel,

Moneke. Hey, Joelle. Hey, Glenn. 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 grown more beautiful, I mean. Well, for a senator, I mean. He gets trained as a Jedi and gets seduced to the dark side of the false by the kindly politician Palpatine, who was played by Ian McDermid. Palpatine, of course, is secretly the evil dove, Sidious. Good as a point of view, Anakin. The Sith 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-1 Canobi, played in the prequels, by Ewan McGregor. You were the chosen one. It was said that you would destroy this, sin. Don't join them.

Bring balance to the force, not leaving 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 Leah gets separated and sent off to live in hiding. Hufsa 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? 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 Hufsa 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. Okay. Bad but my bad. You remind me of my nieces and nephews who were 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 feel about these films in general. Joelle, I have an ungood 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. So picture it's 1999, between time, 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 Wars stand. 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. Then when we talk about Attack of the Cones, cover 13, I'm thinking a little bit higher now, a little more attuned. 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 I remember walking out of that movie just being like, what, why? What's happening? It's awful. I'm with you so far. Before 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 Anna can turn 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, ha ha, I saw that like side battle, Anakin and Obi-1 were sort of like mildly chittering about on the side. So that's how I've come around to this idea now as an adult where I've such an appreciation for George's forward view on filmmaking. Right.

this, people are flocking to doing digital filmmaking. And while neither, let's be real, the originals or the prequels are your gold standard of filmmaking. 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 Jar. I have many a critique on Jar 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 heifer 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 the prequels. 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 a lot, 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 Ewox that I hated then, still kind of hate, that I felt like, oh, these films that stayed the same. They were always four kids, and I grew up, even though I was only 15 at the time. What I'm hearing from you, Hufza, is an emotional reaction that stays with you. And I still have a 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. Joel, 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. The dialogue is a struggle. Yes. Okay. Where is the emotional connection for this?

It's in three parts and their names are Yoda, Obi-1, and Padma. There's something so wonderful about Frank Asa'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. Padma. Okay. I liked Leah, didn't love her.

Thought she was really cool as a kid, but also I was like, she's the girl. Now Padman 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 everything that Padmae 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 they could have gotten to third without Ewan because he's just so damn charming. You just love him. I guess finally, I was just a sucker for Laura Glenn.

I'm so sorry. Like, if you give me an average show, shot full of like a lot of lower. I'm going to be infested. I'm going to 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 those three characters plus the expansion of lore that really worked for me. Now, Hufsa, 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, Hufsa, is so much Jar Jar, in a way that I did not recall. It's all Oki Day and How Woo'd and Exquise Me. Yeah. I'd forgotten how much it is. I kind of want to defend Jar Jor Banks 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 Jar Jar got a raw deal because he was just doing what he was hired to do. What he was hiring to do was so much over and above kitty stuff than even the Ewaks were. And yet, at the same time, this is also a movie that gets bogged. down in, well, go into committee and I have a vote of no confidence. So were you down with Jar Jar and the Sipip up and the whole, you know, Mesa Wooed aspect of it? Or did you understand why there was so much politics?

So no, at eight 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 Jar very annoying. I did not like the Mesa dialogue. I did not like how inefficient he was. I do remember, though, that Toys R Us was full of Jar Jar Jar B. 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 four 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. I know. I've forgotten about it. But yeah. There's a way to appeal to the children without making them cringe.

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. What does that mean? Look, the sentence right before that, the one that opens the crawl is a lot better. It's like turmoil has engulfed the galactrical public. And you're like turmoil and gulf. These are active words.

I can get into this. Oh, this is going to be great. But he was tipping his hand. And some would argue, and I want to get your take on this, somewhat 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?

Lucas has been very clear about like what his political stances 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. Some stuff that's happening. Grownups 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 him in and we're racing. We're now in a moment where the greatest Star Wars check out and or, 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 John Williams' score, of course. And Ellie Hortman and Ely McGregor's performances that really keep people in their seats, whereas the politics, I think those people were able to either just let it go by or ignore completely. 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. Right. 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. 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 best books I've read, period. You kind of understand, like Joelle said, like, how did Anakin fall? It wasn't just because of pod made, but it was also because of the 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, like pew, pew, pew, pew, stormtrooper clone. Yeah, I will say, I'm going to 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 Finn 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-Jedy.

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? Where's the gray? 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, like, dark side, but haughty and imperious and so sure of themselves, which is why a lot of the stuff Palpatine says to Anna. And yeah, you can read it as, oh, it's lies and deceit. But also...

Have you heard the tragedy of Darth Play Just the Wise best scene, I think? No, I mean, 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. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is.

What must I do, Master Yoder? Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose. 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 gone back and actually seen. saved his mom. Come on. Yeah.

It doesn't make any sense. 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 their far too similar. If you think about Op. Juan's line, only the Sith, Dylan Absolutes, which is in and of itself, an absolute. Which is an absolute. So did the Jedi.

Yes, exactly. It's like, sir, read the room. What is going on? we can now come to Padmae and Anakin. Yes, we can. And this romance. Was there ever a point in you're watching where you were like, hey, this couple, make it sense. It's hot.

It's working for me. Even as a small child. Me either. As a small young lady. I was like, no, ma'am. I was deeply uncomfortable with Anakin staring at Padmey, Padme saying, please don't look at me this way. And then Anakin proceeding to creep on her for like an entire moment. movie. They roll around in a grass field. She's a senator. They fight a battle together and then they

get married and, you know, three years later. And why? Yeah, this to me is the biggest failing of this series because it relies so heavily on that storyline working. Yes, I'm convinced about why he fell in love with her because he's had this 10-year obsession with her. Why does she fall in love with him? Like, where does that change? That part. I have an answer. Okay. Okay, okay, give it to us. As I watch 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, 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 certain

Christensen, who has been good in other things, could bridge that gap in our minds? I'm going to 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 like this kid is tuned in. That I hate you.

Yeah. Yeah. Visceral. It sends chills out my spine every time. I'm like, that's real. Like he's in that moment. I hate you. When he comes back after his mom has passed and he's just talking to Padmey 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, you can't get like an Empire Strikes back. One of the greatest Star Wars films of all time is so keyed into.

I mean, if you look at the Leah 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 us so silly, almost as if they're not talking to each other, which frequently feels like they are not talking to each other about the same time. And we've seen these actors do that really well. 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. I have to defend my fellow Canadian in the media. We got to 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 McDermid, who is really Hannah Montanaing 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's thought of 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 the many favors. 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 like homies.

They're like, okay, we're going to do this one. No, we got to do the other thing. They're so fun to watch. Like, that entire like sequence of them is a good one. 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. So I wanted to just 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 there were lightsabers. So just kind of seeing that community come back and embrace these films. And, you know, like me, not think they're their best things to have happened to the cinema, but also appreciate them for what they are. That's been really heartening to see. That's great. Well, you've heard three different journeys with the stuff.

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 at Facebook.com slash PCHH. And that brings us to the end of our show. Jewelmanique, Hufsafathamah. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Glenn. And I want to say that sand is rough, coarse, and irritating. Not like you, Huffa. It certainly is. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and Hufzavatham and edited by Jessica Reedy and Mike Katsiv. And Hello, Khamin, provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all next time.