Golden Raspberry Award Foundation As seen on Razzies.com!
Written by: Chefelf

Ep. I
TPM
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Ep. II
AOTC
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Ep. III
ROTS
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Ep. IV
ANH
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Ep. V
ESB
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Ep. VI
ROTJ
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Holiday
Special
<<- Episode III Teaser Review! ->>

The Madness Continues...

Before Episode II I found that every time I got together with Jacques, Paul and Laura that we would inevitably complain about Episode I and the various things that we disliked about it. I guess what inspired me to write the articles 78 Reasons to Hate Star Wars: Episode I was that we seemed to be thinking of new reasons all the time and it was nearly impossible to remember all of them simultaneously after only seeing the movie twice.

Finally I decided to sit down and watch the movie with a notepad and take notes about all the things that took away from the movie and the collection of movies as a whole. I never thought there would be so many.

The articles have generated more email for me than everything else I've ever written combined. I recently found out that a large amount of this traffic was generated by a mention in the May 24, 2002 issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine in which my article was reviewed. Go figure!

Before I begun getting the emails I toyed with the idea of doing a new set of reasons for the new movie. With the enormous success of the "78 Reasons" articles, and now that I have become a millionaire from their success, I figure that a follow up article is in order for Star Wars: Episode II.

Here's how the emails I get generally breaks down:

60% Complimentary yet offering suggestions for more reasons.
30% Complimentary. They usually say that I'm a genius (this is my favorite kind of email).
3% People breaking down my article's reasons and sending me a list of 78 Reasons why my 78 reasons are bad reasons.
6% People stringing together insults and swears that generally don't even make any sense together. They usually involve saying that I "don't have a life" or something equally as clever.
<1% Concisely stated and rationally put reasons why the movie is good. They always include information which is aimed at getting me to rethink my opinions. While I usually respect the people who write these emails, they never do anything to change my opinion.

So most of the email I get is very complimentary but some of it isn't. Usually the argumentative emails are pretty weak. People often say, "Just accept it! It's a movie and movies aren't real!"

This is true. Movies definitely aren't real. However if a movie is totally absurd and unbelievable then what is the viewer to do to avoid being distracted? This takes place in a universe where the rules have been more or less clearly defined. If Jedi all of a sudden started walking through walls would you just accept that? If Jedi could fly would you accept that? The rules can always be bent but you can't just use the excuse of this being a movie to let anything go.

Star Wars movies have to be measured by a different standard, a standard set in 1977. I think there is an obligation to the fans to make a film that, while staying true to the story, expands on the characters and the story without resorting to silly special effects and scenes that do nothing but pander to the lowest common denominator.

These two films are along the lines of the Star Wars, novels. I read a lot of the novels and I even enjoyed some of them but I didn't think that they were Star Wars movies, they were just speculative fiction in the Star Wars universe. Some of it was very good speculative fiction, but it was speculative fiction nonetheless.

I find the first two installments of this prequel trilogy to be around the same quality level as some of the poorer Star Wars novels. These are comic book plots that have been dumbed down for moronic eight year olds or brain dead chimpanzees.

Here we go. Instead of sending me hatemail this time...

Join the ongoing discussion at the Chefelf.com Star Wars Forum

The list, as always, is presented in chronological order for your enjoyment.

Reasons
1-10
Reasons
11-20
Reasons
21-30
Reasons
31-40
Reasons
41-50
Reasons
51-64
Additional
#1
Additional
#2

Back to Chefelf's Main Star Wars Page


Reasons to Hate Star Wars

Episode I (78 Reasons to Hate!)

Episode II (64+ Reasons to Hate!)

Episode III (91 Reasons to Hate!)

The Nitpicker's Guide to Star Wars

Episode IV: Special Edition (12 Nitpicks!)

Episode V: Special Edition (8 Nitpicks!)

Episode VI: Special Edition (17 Nitpicks!)


Join the Discussion!
Chefelf's Star Wars Forum

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