5. The Star Wars Prequels – Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)/Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002)/Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)
George Lucas’ Role: Writer/Director
It was clear from his misguided attempt to write and direct three prequel Star Wars movies that George Lucas didn’t (and doesn’t) understand why people like Star Wars in the first place. Gone is the fun of the original trilogy, replaced here with talk of the Trade Federation and boring interspecies politics. Factor in an extremely irritating kid, a flat script, Lucas’ ham-fisted call backs to the old movies, and sequences rendered with so much CGI that you’re pretty sure the characters have landed in video game world or something, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
These movies have been dissected to death elsewhere, so you’re probably well aware as to why they failed so miserably in every aspect. Jar-Jar Binks, of course, has become a poster boy for Lucas-hate worldwide – completely unsurprising given that the character is utterly intolerable and stupidly dense in all ways. But Jar-Jar isn’t the entire reason that these films are so bad: it’s Lucas’ own misunderstanding as to why Star Wars is so worshipped in the first place. He’d be the first to admit that he doesn’t know as much about Star Wars as his dedicated fans… and that’s the problem.
Check out this interview he had with Family Guy’s Seth McFarlane, in which he fails to guess several of the film’s musical cues:
It’s not his complete fault, really. George Lucas just isn’t in to Star Wars as much as everybody else is.