Go back to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Written by: Rik
Date posted: March 21, 2022

Even in this quiet corner of the internet, simply tossing out a mildly controversial opinion gives one a little more pause than it used to. And once upon a time I think possibly what I am about to say wouldn’t even have been that contentious at all, I don’t think.

Here are some pre-emptive caveats: Star Wars should be for everyone; no-one is owed the films or stories they want to see; we grew up with Star Wars being a certain thing, but that is allowed to change; I can well imagine those of a different generation being really fond of these films; and the release of any piece of entertainment does not have the ability to somehow retrospectively ruin my childhood.

Having said all that: the Star Wars prequels are still a bit rubbish, aren’t they?

Discussions around the relative worthiness of the latest trilogy (discussions that I largely tried to avoid) made me aware of the fact that this once widely accepted opinion was possibly being revised. Far from the newest films being a welcome return to form, the arguments went, they were in fact the worst of the lot, and the prequels were good, and had been unfairly maligned.

(My view, for what it’s worth, regarding the new ones: Force Awakens – fun re-hashing of elements of the original trilogy; Last Jedi – took the series somewhere potentially interesting; Rise of Skywalker – distressingly, misguidedly poor stuff: not, as previously noted, some kind of personal violation, but enough to put me off SW things for a while).

In preparing to re-watch the prequels recently, a number of thoughts neatly summarised my generation’s reaction to Episodes 1-3: needing to pick up a copy of The Phantom Menace, I saw one in a local charity shop but was too embarrassed to take it to the counter and buy it; the DVDs of the other two films had already been acquired in a similar fashion some years ago and were in pristine condition, almost as if someone figured they should have copies of all the Star Wars films, but never actually watched these ones and then gave them away; and the whole exercise made me wonder if I possibly had too much time on my hands at the moment.

But it’s been a while, and playing KOTOR conjured a few nostalgic feelings for Star Wars as it was in the 00s. I mean, I was there, just turned 18 when The Phantom Menace came out, and remember sitting in the cinema with friends, almost unable to believe that I was going to watch a brand new Star Wars film.

It wasn’t as if I immediately realised I didn’t like it, but the early 00s involved a process of gradually coming to terms that I hadn’t really enjoyed Episode I, and then doing the same with each of the sequels. I went to see Attack of the Clones multiple times: The Phantom Menace was an aberration, was my thinking, with a slightly annoying kid and an even more annoying CGI character, but they were gone, and this was the proper stuff.

Except no-one in the film has any charisma, or chemistry with each other, with Liam Neeson’s departed Qui-Gon Jinn the only Jedi in the whole trilogy who demonstrates something approaching a personality, discharging his solemn duties with at least an occasional twinkle in the eye. If you ignore Ewan McGregor doing a stiff impression of Alec Guinness, and Hayden Christensen’s picnic antics with Natalie Portman, it’s just a case of waiting for some mildly cool Star Wars stuff to happen. And is it even cool to watch seemingly never-ending CGI capering with characters that you don’t necessarily care about?

Again, it probably took me until the release of Revenge of the Sith to realise any of this. Perhaps by that point there was more general acceptance that, while we could all hope, the third one probably wouldn’t be all that much better. I convinced myself that it was (fool me three times!) but I don’t think it is now.

There’s the frisson of excitement of seeing certain things from the originals come into place. But it’s a problem when those things, which you already know are going to happen, are the best moments in the film and the whole trilogy. And even they sort of seem to be rushed and struggling for space in amongst a whole load of new stuff that is really quite boring.

Also, I’m sure the point has been made before, but Jedi seem to be pretty rubbish at training people, driving powerful youngsters to the dark side, before getting killed or going off to some distant planet to sulk and do some yoga. Their advice and teachings also seem exposed as baffling and contradictory – don’t have any emotions? What is this – Equilibrium?

Anyway. KOTOR has free reign to distance itself from these films, which works to its advantage: although the Jedi remain front and centre, it realises that a broader band of personalities and heroes are much easier to get behind.

As for the films themselves, the one thing I did get from the re-watch is that I can really imagine those younger than me really getting into this trilogy at the time and having some affection for it. I do think it’s slightly disingenuous for George Lucas to say that was his intention all along, given its explicit connection to the originals, but there you go.

But as for being better than the new ones: no, I’m not having that, sorry.