Part Two of essays from winners of our Clone Wars DVD contest.

This comes straight from Jeff Henry.

There are plenty of reasons for someone to like the prequels. Fantastic action sequences. (Notice that they are directed/edited in such a way that you can actually see what the heck is going on. A welcome change from the quick-cut shakey-cam work that has become the norm in recent years.) The sheer imagination. (Rainstorm planets with greedy, long-necked big-eyed freaks who clone soldiers for profit…who can beat that?). The fantastic art design. (Honestly, can anybody name another science fiction movie with spaceship and alien creature designs that comes even close to the prequels?)

…but none of that matters. Do you know why *I* like the prequels? I like them because everybody else hates them.

I know that may seem strange, but I grew up in “the dark times”. Before the Special Edition re-releases. I would go to my junior high school classes with my nose parked in an old beat-up Return of the Jedi novelization that I had bought at a used book store. I would wear my Empire Strikes Back shirt, which was just a cheap “original theatrical poster” screenprint on a black tee. I had bought it for $20 at Suncoast. You see, back then we didn’t have internet shops or Hot Topics where we could pick up a “cool” Star Wars shirt with an edgy new design. All we had were the basics.

Other kids would see me with my Star Wars gear, reading my occasional Star Wars comic book or novel and they wouldn’t know what to think. Some would make fun of me. (I didn’t blame them–I knew I was behaving in a very nerdy manner. I was just too captivated by the films to care what other people thought.) Others would confuse it with Star Trek(“Beam me up, Whorf!”), which would secretly drive me crazy.

…and then the Special Editions were released. And suddenly everybody in high school became huge fans of the movie. Everybody talked about how Empire was clearly the best of the trilogy, with only a few kids claiming to prefer “the one with the Ewoks”. They all talked about how cool Boba Fett was, and how “they are making new movies now, which will be about Luke and Leia as kids”.

Speculation was running wild:

“An Mandalorian Army will fight in the Clone Wars. Millions of Boba Fetts, all fighting jedi knights!”

“Anakin becomes Vader by falling into a volcano!”

“Wookiee jedis will appear in episodes 7-9!”

Ok, this entry is already becoming way too long. But my basic point is that even though I was thrilled to finally have other people enjoy Star Wars just like I enjoyed it…at the same time, it was kind of a bummer. (Partly because I didn’t even like the Special Edition changes, but I’ll save that rant for another contest.)

Despite being a box office hit and a critical masterpiece, from the years of 1986 through 1997 I really felt like Star Wars was “mine”. And in the few instances where I met other Star Wars fans my age, there was a connection there, you know? I could talk for hours with another fan about various details about the trilogy. To meet a Star Wars fan was to make an instant friend.

The movies seemed to “grow” with me, too. As a small child, I liked it for the crazy creatures like Yoda and Threepio. As I got older, I began to appreciate the explosions and dismemberments. As a teenager I begain to appreciate the well-told story and special effects that still hold up today. There was just something special about me having this special set of movies all to myself.

…and now here we are again. I’m not stupid enough to believe that I am really the only person who loved the prequels. Each movie made approximately six gillion dollars at the box office, so I’m sure there are plenty of other fans out there. But sometimes, when I am in the real world, I feel that same sense of intimacy with the prequels that I felt back when I was a young teenager watching the original trilogy.

The series is over. No sequels are planned. The mainstream public has moved on. Normal people aren’t going to sit there and debate about whether or not Palpatine lost to Mace Windu on purpose or not. They saw the movies–they either liked them or didn’t like them, but either way they have moved on. But not me. I still watch the movies whenever they come on TV, and I still post on message boards and I still debate with myself about whether certain aspects of the saga were intentional or if it was all just a lucky accident.

The prequels weren’t perfect movies, but they were the perfect movies for me. I found each movie to be dramatic and engaging. I found each movie to have a perfect balance of “introducing new ideas” versus “maintaining the traditional Star Wars style”. Most of all, it was just a great experience to finally have all of my questions answered. Questions like “how did Artoo and Threepio meet?” and “why did Anakin join the dark side?” and “what would happen if you stabbed a lightsaber into three feet of solid steel?”.

For some people, no answer will ever be satisfactory compared to the fun of asking the question in the first place. Every time I read some internet nerd’s fanfic showing why their version of the Anakin/Obi-Wan fight should have been filmed instead of Lucas’ version, I am reminded of this. Nothing can beat out twenty years of your own imagination.

And that’s fine–but for me personally, after hearing so many theories and reading so much speculation, it was amazing to finally see what “really” happened. Seeing Vader rise for the first time was the most intense movie-going experience of my life. When he took his first breath, the audience was completely silent–you could literally hear a pin drop.

So yeah. Prequels. They are mine. They were made for me, and I love them. Sorry if you didn’t feel the same way.