Nice Guy Rian Johnson Has Nice Things To Say About The 'Star Wars' Prequels
While I don't know Rian Johnson personally, I think I'm safe in assuming he's a nice guy. He would have to be – after The Last Jedi came out, Johnson's Twitter account was bombarded with angry people bemoaning how different his Star Wars movie was. And rather than telling everyone to go pound sand – which is probably what I would've done – Johnson has remained polite and even respectful about the entire thing (probably because he knows deep down that he made one of the best Star Wars movies ever). Recently, Johnson kept the niceties flowing by showering some praise on the much-derided Star Wars prequels.
Recently on Twitter, a prompt was making the rounds urging people to say something – anything! – nice about the prequels. Rian Johnson, director of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, weighed in, and made a pretty good case for why the prequels are important:
"Lucas made a gorgeous 7 hour long movie for children about how entitlement and fear of loss turns good people into fascists, and did it while spearheading nearly every technical sea change in modern filmmaking of the past 30 years."
Like I said: nice guy. And this is a good defense of the prequels. I still think the plotting, dialogue, and, well...almost everything else about those three films is a mess. But I do agree with Johnson that Lucas was going for something big and risky, and the world of franchise films could use more risks like that, especially these days.
It's been interesting to watch the sentiment about the Star Wars prequels evolve over the years. I distinctly remember how loathed the movies were not too long after the prequel trilogy concluded, but over time, I've noticed a strong uptick in people defending the George Lucas-directed movies. I'm assuming the change has to do with a younger generation having grown up with the films, and thus having a special place for them in their hearts (you know, kind of like how people love Space Jam even though it's awful).
I won't begrudge anyone for liking the prequels – everyone is entitled to like whatever movie they like. That said, I still remain firm in my belief that they're pretty damn bad. The best of the bunch is probably The Phantom Menace, and even that is barely watchable. Still, for all the faults of the prequels, I will concede that George Lucas did attempt to cram some big, important themes into the films, and that's commendable.