Honestly, I’ve gotta say, the lightsaber duels in the prequels were SO much more awesome… Then again, even that doesn’t redeem the half-assed everything else… Or Jar-jar… (cringes)

@Background Pony #1258  
stiff and wooden  
Much of it is, yes– but look at who is stiff and wooden: cloistered space monks whose distinguishing characteristic is their even temperament and lack of emotional display, and heads of state in formal settings. I maintain that the acting was exactly as stiff as the characterizations called for, there was just a narrative focus on characters whose place in both the story and the universe called for stiffness of delivery; one of the biggest flaws of I-III was that there was no Han Solo in the mix to liven things up and give the sticks in the mud someone scoundrelly to play off of. Anakin was like a walking avatar for socially inept internet geeks, and I think some of the hate flung at him was based on a reflexive recoiling from what haters took as a negative portrayal of themselves; Young Anakin also gets a lot of flak for being acted poorly, but man– that was every precocious genius kid I ever knew growing up.
 
@Jarkes  
Mark Hamill  
Another good example of the effect; I thought he did a bang-up job of portraying a gormless farm dork thrust into the galactic spotlight, and was a perfect tonal foil for Ford’s Charismatic Rogue delivery.
 
Expanded Universe  
The storyline in the X-Wing and T.I.E Fighter games was pretty good, as was at least the first Dark Forces game. Some of the Dark Horse Rogue Squadron comics– especially In the Empire’s Service– were quite good, and if they ever made a movie of Tag And Bink, I would watch that $#!+ in the theaters eighty bajillion times.

@TexasUberAlles
 
I’d make a comment about how people were probably also a little upset that it ended up retconning some of their favorite Expanded Universe stories (even before Disney declared pretty much all of it non-canon)… but then I remembered that most of those were pretty much licensed fanfiction anyway. I mean, apart from the Thrawn Trilogy (which I have the misfortune of never having read) and Shadows of the Empire, I can’t really think of anything else from the Expanded Universe that wasn’t incredibly stupid.
 
And as the Nostalgia Critic pointed out, a lot of the things people complain about in the prequels were present in the original trilogy as well, particularly the acting (I believe the original film was one of Mark Hamil’s first films, and, well, it shows) and even the writing at points. Heck, supposedly Harrison Ford said to George Lucas during the filming of the original film (or possibly Empire; I forget which), “George, you can write this s***, but you sure can’t say it.”
 
And give Lucas some credit; once he realized how much people hated Jar Jar, he made Jar Jar the instigator of the creation of the Galactic Empire and pretty much reduced his role to small, no-dialogue cameos for the rest of the prequel trilogy.

@TexasUberAlles  
No, they’re terrible films and would be even if the original movies never existed. The acting is so stiff and wooden and the writing would have been better if a 3 year old did it, at least they’d know how to get to the point.

@The Toaster Repair Pony  
Sorry ILM didn’t animate your Star Wars self-insertion fanfic, bro.
 
Seriously, I-III had their problems– a… lot of problems– but the sheer volume and intensity of kneejerk hate they received was a mostly unjustified reflexive response to the fact that they weren’t exactly the same as the grand epic fanfics people had been writing in their heads for the previous fifteen years, but were instead just… movies. Big budget space opera movies. Aimed at kids and teenagers.

@Background Pony #1258
 
Got it. Still probably not going to watch the video.

People still give a shit about the Star Wars prequels?

@Jarkes  
He’s not playing a character, but if you listen to the video he clearly says it in a joking manner and isn’t serious about it. He doesn’t even sound mad at all, he’s just giving a joking response to people who say that their kids like the movies and that that makes them alright.

At least we can agree that the prequels sucked, right?

@Background Pony #1258
 
Honestly, I can never tell with some of these people. In a lot of cases, it’s clear that they’re just playing a character and while they may actually dislike something, they’re exaggerating it for comedic effect, and when they go too far and people call them out on it, they apologize. Other times, you get the sense that they really mean what they’re saying, particularly when they start insulting the people who like something they don’t and then attack people in the comments that don’t agree with them.

Oh wow, I forgot about Spill shutting down. That was about a year ago, now…

@Jarkes  
He said it as a joke, calm down.

The vulgar tag exists, guys. Please remember to add the tag.

Well, sounds like this is another person to put on my “Internet Video Reviewers Whom I’m Never Going to Watch Because They’re Giant Dicks” list…