Top WOW Moments In The ‘Star Wars’ Prequels: Part 1
The original trilogy has plenty of WOW moments. Now, a WOW moment doesn’t necessarily mean some big set action piece. It can be, but action extravaganzas are becoming pedestrian in today’s age of CGI. A genuine WOW moment will draw an emotional response from you. It’ll make you sit back and say, “Wow!” A New Hope is filled with them, from Obi-Wan’s sacrifice, to Luke Skywalker turning off his targeting computer during the trench run, to Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon saving Luke just in time from Darth Vader, to even something simple like Luke wearing a helmet with a blast shield and deflecting the seeker’s blasts on the Millennium Falcon. In each of these moments, we feel whatever emotion the scene is trying to draw from us. In these examples I’ve listed: sadness, exhilaration, joy, and pride.
The prequels polarize fans, although it’s fair to suggest the ledger is in red. Sadly, that negative profile overrides the positive things that The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith do such that many won’t even entertain the notion that there’s anything good about them. The reality is when the prequels hit the mark, they’re spectacular, and manage their array of WOW moments. Over the next several posts, I plan to look at my top ten.
RELATED: How The Prequels Went From Hated To Loved In 10 Years
10. Qui-Gon Jinn Cuts Through The Door – The Phantom Menace
Cutting through a door isn’t a WOW moment, is it? You’re thinking. If this is a WOW moment, no wonder the prequels are lame.
This scene is much more then the simple act of Qui-Gon thrusting his lightsaber into a door. George Lucas understands theater. He is setting up the premise. The Jedi have come to speak to the Trade Federation. The Trade Federation have already tried to execute the Jedi. The Jedi mow through the battle droids. That in itself is cool – it’s not only that we see how inconsequential the battle droids are, but that the Jedi are indifferent to their opposition. This is just matter-of-fact for the Jedi. It’s also a great way to demonstrate their abilities.
Viceroy Nute Gunray and his sidekick, Rune Haako, express their fear. They act as ciphers for us, building up that the Jedi are held in awe and reverence. Compare this to, say, Kylo Ren’s appearance in The Rise of Skywalker, where Lor San Tekka chides him, and then Poe backtalks him. Um, that guy’s our chief villain, okay?
Back to Qui-Gon, who thrusts his lightsaber into the door and begins cutting. It shows the lightsaber in a different context. Up to this point (in the original trilogy) we’ve only seen it used as a weapon. Han Solo might have used it to cut open a tauntaun in The Empire Strikes Back, but here’s a different practical use.
Nute orders the blast doors closed. Qui-Gon thrusts his lightsaber into the doors. Rune exclaims, “They’re still coming through!” Nute laments, “This is impossible!” Then, the camera closes in on Qui-Gon patiently cutting through the door as the music pipes in.
It is such wonderful framing of the Jedi. Remember, up to this point, we've never seen the Jedi in action. We see Obi-Wan Kenobi as an old Jedi in A New Hope, and Luke as a fledgling Jedi in Return of the Jedi. We have never seen fully trained Jedi when they're at the height of their powers. This whole sequence depicts them at work. They've been sent on a mission. They encounter resistance. They face an obstacle and not a single bit of it phases them. It doesn't do anything grand. It doesn't have to.
Admittedly, all this is undone when the droid destroyers show up, and the Jedi leave. Surely they can push the destroyers away, reach into their mechanics and disable them, or drop a ceiling on them. Creatively, it’s a weak way to win an impasse.
I’ve always believed that The Phantom Menace would have been much more interesting had Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan gotten through that door, and the narrative flowed from their interrogation of Nute and Rune. But up until this point, it's a beautiful introduction to the Jedi, as well as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.
9. Anakin And Padmé Get Married – Attack of the Clones
The criticism of Attack of the Clones is diluted down to Anakin’s line about sand.
This is the epitome of why the movie’s so bad apparently. It irks me that this criticism is highlighted at all. Teens write bad poetry and say cringe-worthy stuff to their beaus. Don’t tell me you haven’t done it when you were younger. We all have. Yet this stupid criticism has become this exemplar for condemnation. That’s not to say the movie is flawless or brilliant, just that some of the criticism is nitpicking, and that nitpicking is used as a first line charge, which then overrides anything good that it does. After all, the movie does a number of things well.
In the movie’s climax, we see Darth Sidious and Darth Tyrannus celebrate the beginning of the war. This is what they have been maneuvering towards. I appreciate the query of how all this is occurring right under the Jedi's noses, particularly how they cannot sense Palpatine. This is something Lucas could’ve explored further. Perhaps, he could have looked at how the Jedi, through complacency or for some other reason, have failed to detect what is happening. Lucas teases at it. We see Mace Windu, Obi-Wan, and Yoda high up in a tower as they talk about the need to monitor the Senate. Both their location and discussion creates this separation: the Jedi are aloof in their high tower, so far from the common people, operating alone. There is also another level of separation. Anakin isn’t here. He might be a Padawan, but you would have accepted his inclusion given the role he plays, and how he figures in this prophecy. However, the three most important Jedi have excluded him.
Like The Empire Strikes Back, Attack of the Clones ends on a downer. The bad guys are in the ascendancy, while the good guys are struggling to regroup. The bright spark seems to be the marriage between Anakin and Padmé– the realization of young love. The score is rousing. The backdrop is beatific. The focus is soft. It is a contrast to the events we have just seen, but also a tie-in. This should be a happy moment (even though we know it's doomed).
The especially cool moment is when Anakin uses his newly attached prosthetic mechanical hand to take Padmé’s hand. This should be a warm, sweet moment, but here’s another separation. Anakin is beginning his transformation into Vader. He can never fully commit to Padmé given the journey he has begun.
Even bonded here, hand in hand, they are no longer the same.
8. Anakin Slaughters The Sand People – Attack of the Clones
Anakin learns that the Sand People have taken his mother. On one hand, it seems improbable that he hasn’t seen her since he left Tatooine (in The Phantom Menace). Surely even a Jedi Padawan can drop in and say hello to their families. At the very least, you would think the Jedi or somebody in the Republic would have gone to buy her freedom. Qui-Gon tried, so unless he was breaking some unspoken code, it seemed something that must have been doable. As it is, Watto sells her to Cliegg Lars, who frees her, and marries her.
Then, the Tusken Raiders take her, and she is presumed dead. Anakin tracks her down and finds her in a Tusken Raider camp. He sneaks into a tent, and they share one final moment together before she dies. Enraged, Anakin emerges from the tent and kills two Sand People. The others realize he is there and prepare to attack.
The camera cuts to the Jedi Council, where we hear Qui-Gon’s cry of warning, and Yoda sensing something’s wrong. I think Lucas should have left it all here, rather than having Yoda and Mace Windu discuss it.
We get what’s going on here. Anakin is committing an atrocious act (and one that foreshadows what he will do to the Younglings). He has given into his rage, and in this moment he is powerful. He is tasting the dark side. It is so well done. It is also an extremely dark narrative choice— arguably as dark as it gets in Star Wars to have a protagonist kill an entire tribe of people. The Sand People aren’t evil. They are simply a different culture. Yet Anakin slaughters them all indiscriminately.
I don’t think he should have later told Padmé about his crime. It should have been something that he held onto, which then festered, but also showed him that he was unstoppable and he got away with it. If anything, he should have felt too ashamed to confide in Padmé, and too embarrassed to confide in Obi-Wan, and thus found a sympathetic ear in Palpatine. That would have been a great bonding scene, and the beginning of their relationship.
Well, what do you think so far? I think the interesting thing with these scenes is that there is more to them than what we see on the surface.
In my next post, I'll look at numbers 4 through to 7.