Navigating the space between adoring something undeniably flawed and providing a critical retrospective for the material is like trying to slip a torpedo through the Death Star’s tiny exhaust port.īut not all prequel derision should be created equal. I unironically believe podracing is cool-maybe even the part in outer space when young Anakin says “now this is podracing!” when he is not, in fact, podracing. I have tried my best to understand the logic behind the first opening crawl of a new trilogy describing the taxation of trade routes (kids love their Space Tax). I know every reason why Anakin Skywalker doesn’t like sand. I remember every detail of the ‘50s-style American diner that somehow exists on Coruscant. Like the rest of Star Wars on the big screen, I have watched the prequels more times than I can count. It’s more like we’ve all come together to laugh and confess that we love trash at the altar of our lord and savior, George Lucas. (Prequel memes are ubiquitous enough that I began my pitch for this essay with “hello there.”) While it would be a touch unfair to make a blanket statement for the intent behind meme-ing The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith to death, many of the executions don’t seem mean-spirited, despite often highlighting the trilogy’s wooden dialogue, overabundance of CGI, offensive caricatures, and terrible acting. Far from having a limited shelf life, prequel memes have continued to thrive since the trilogy’s release in the early 2000s-even evolving to make their way onto emerging platforms like TikTok.
If the strength of a franchise’s legacy were defined by the number of memes it spawned, the Star Wars prequel trilogy would be among the most heralded works in the history of cinema.