Star Wars has been many things over the years. It started as a game-changing space-adventure movie that would forever alter the course of Hollywood filmmaking, and now the series has grown into a massive franchise complete with a dozen films, an exponentially growing number of live-action and animated television series, hit theme park rides, fan-favorite video games and far, far more than that. Considering how all-encompassing the Star Wars brand has become, there are bound to be points of division within the fan base over the material being produced.
Nowhere is the division over Star Wars more apparent than in the love and hate for two of its three trilogies. While the original trilogy of films (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) is almost universally beloved, the two trilogies that followed in the Skywalker Saga are a bit more hit-and-miss when it comes to fan adoration. The prequel trilogy of the 2000s (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith) initially divided fans and, for a while, seemed to have brought and end to the franchise overall, but the grand return to the series with the sequel trilogy (The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skyalker) under Disney’s ownership has furthered that dissection of the Star Wars fan base.
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With only a decade separating these two trilogies, the approach taken to both sets of films couldn’t have been more opposite. Here’s how the Star Wars prequel and sequel trilogies compare.
Use of Nostalgia
20th Century Fox
The use of nostalgia for the original Star Wars trilogy is a significant differentiating factor between the prequels and the sequels. The prequel films were fairly light on their use of nostalgia and references to the original films. This is largely because, well, the events of those movies hadn’t happened yet. That’s kind of the whole definition of a prequel. However, that’s not to say there are no instances of nostalgia in the prequels. Beyond the central duo of Anakin Skywalker (a young Darth Vader) and Obi-Wan Kenobi, in addition to the villainous Sheev Palpatine, the prequels only brought a few other familiar elements back from the original trilogy. The inclusion of R2-D2 and C-3PO is one of the most notable instances of which, considering they aren’t key parts of the prequels’ story and were really only there to remind fans of the original films. There’s also the return to desert planet Tatooine, which is the only planet from the original films that gets any meaningful screen-time in the prequels. In short, while the prequels did have some nostalgic elements, the films were not reliant on the audience’s love for the original films.
The sequel trilogy, on the other hand, heavily pulls from the original Star Wars trilogy for inspiration and good will from the fans. One of the biggest complaints about The Force Awakens, which is otherwise a fairly well-regarded film by fans, is that its story is almost a complete copy of A New Hope. It’s about a protagonist, who is seemingly nobody, getting swept off their desert planet home and becoming part of a rebellion fighting against fascist tyranny, which eventually leads to a dog-fight style attack on an enormous weapon capable of destroying entire planets. While The Last Jedi actively tried to move beyond the original trilogy’s shadow, The Rise of Skywalker brought everything back to where it was. The Emperor was suddenly revived as the central antagonist, there was a “shocking” reveal that the hero was descended from the villain, there were even more planet-killing weapons (they literally visit the wreckage of the second Death Star) and the ultimate end-goal is to fight Kylo Ren and turn him back to the good side (just as Luke did with Vader).
While even the creator of Star Wars, George Lucas, says that the series is supposed to echo and rhyme from movie to movie, many fans believe the sequel trilogy went a little too far with this mindset. Instead of evoking some of the same feelings and situations of the original films like the prequels did, the sequel trilogy outright copied and pasted many of the same plot points and story developments.
Building the Story and Universe
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
One thing that both the prequels and the sequels do well is the extent to which they expand the overall story of the Star Wars universe. The prequels did a lot of the heavy lifting for the Star Wars canon on the whole. While the original trilogy talked of a more prosperous time before the Empire, it was the prequels that really explored what that era was like. The films established the Jedi Order and Council, they explored the complicated political turmoil and establishments that lead to the Empire, they provided a more in-depth explanation of The Force and the prequels generally did a solid job of continuing the extensive world building that was begun in the original trilogy.
While the sequel trilogy was lacking in some of these aspects, such as a proper explanation of where the First Order came from or what the New Republic was actually doing in the galaxy, there was a lot done for the more extensive lore of the Star Wars canon. The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi give details regarding the new school of Jedi that Luke founded after Return of the Jedi, and The Last Jedi also explores some of the history of the Jedi through Luke’s exploration of the ancient temples and texts on Ahch-To. The Rise of Skywalker does the same for the Sith, as it introduces the Sith home world of Exegol in the Unknown Regions of the galaxy.
When it comes to the overall stories of these two trilogies, there’s no question that the prequels have a more solid narrative. Lucas had planned out that trilogy far in advance, and, for the most part, he and the other creatives stayed the course regardless of reception to the films. They had a complete story they wanted to tell, and by the time the credits rolled in Revenge of the Sith, that story had been completed. The sequel trilogy took a different approach. Though The Force Awakens establishes a lot for the next two films to build on, there wasn’t actually any solid plan or outline for where the sequel trilogy was going. With different directors and creatives coming in and out of the trilogy, the entire thing was largely just figured out as they went along. While that’s not inherently a bad idea considering that’s what the original trilogy did, the result was that the sequel trilogy ultimately felt rushed and underdeveloped. There were a lot of interesting ideas presented, but then the story would move in a completely different direction before any story threads could be properly followed through on.
Reception and Age
While both of these trilogies have certainly had their naysayers over the years, there has been a lot of love for the films too. Upon its initial release, a lot of people really enjoyed The Phantom Menace simply because it was new Star Wars content. Over the next decade or so, with the release of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, general opinion on the prequels really soured. It became popular to hate on the films, as the story was a bit messy and there was certainly a fair amount of silliness and bad acting to be found in them as well. However, as time has gone on, the general opinion of the prequels has started to come full circle. While there are still a lot of flaws in the films, the strength of the overall story they tell has kept fans coming back to them. The people that were kids when the prequels were released have now grown up, and they carry a lot of love and nostalgia for those films. Lucasfilm has even started to realize this, as the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney+ feels much more geared toward prequel fans than it does lovers of the original trilogy.
The story of the sequel trilogy’s reception is still being written, as The Rise of Skywalker was just released less than three years ago. This trilogy is still pretty fresh in peoples’ minds. That said, it seems to be on a similar trajectory to the prequels so far. People really enjoyed The Force Awakens when it came out, but as The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker followed, the overall reception to the trilogy from fans started to dip. The Last Jedi intensely divided the fan base between those who loved the film and those who hated it, and then The Rise of Skywalker made that division even worse by largely ignoring and retconning much of what The Last Jedi did. At this point, the common consensus seems to be that the sequel trilogy is the weakest of the three Star Wars trilogies.
However, considering the general opinions regarding the prequels got better with time, could we expect the same to happen with the sequels? Well, never say never, but it’s not likely. That’s because, after the prequels came out, that was pretty much all Star Wars fans had for a long while. Until Disney launched The Force Awakens in 2015, live-action Star Wars consisted exclusively of the original trilogy and the prequels. The prequels couldn’t be left in the dust because there was no new material to kick up that dust in the first place. That’s not the case with the newest trilogy.
The first season of The Mandalorian was in the middle of its run when The Rise of Skywalker came out, and since then Star Wars has continued to put out new content on Disney+ to mostly solid results. People love The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett wasn’t as successful, but it still drew an audience, Obi-Wan Kenobi was one of the most watched series on Disney+ since it launched and the latest trailer for Andor has fans excited about the show’s debut next month. The sequel films have, somewhat unfortunately, been buried and forgotten under the myriad of new Star Wars stories that have been released over the last few years. When people look back on Star Wars in the 2000s, they only remember the prequels because they were the only live-action Star Wars material around. But, in a decade or so, when people look back on Star Wars as we now know it, they’ll likely remember The Mandalorian more than they will The Rise of Skywalker.
