My husband likes to say that the romantic dialog in the prequels makes it easy to see why Lucas's marriage failed.
Okay, that's kind of mean, but I think we can agree that George was not really the best writer of these films. His ideas were epic and all, but he should have gotten someone else to do the actual writing. Never having seen Hayden Christiansen in anything else, I came away thinking he was a terrible actor. I have seen Natalie Portman in other things and liked her, but in this - they were both wooden as puppets. I never for one second believed someone as mature and experienced as Padme would be attracted to a whining brat like Anakin - nor did I find it at ALL believable that ten years (or whatever it was) of Jedi training couldn't have cured Anakin of those kinds of attitudes, or at least behavior. Jedi training looks kind of like a weird combination of brutally difficult military training and zen-like philosophy, and I don't know any zen monks or marines who act the way he does. It was SO disappointing.
Their age difference already made their attraction difficult to swallow - I had hoped, after episode one, that we were going to see this very suave, controlled, mature, disciplined Anakin in episode two, someone who seemed so much older-than-his-years due to his rigorous training (remember he had to
make up for lost time because of his age) that you could actually believe an intelligent, sophisticated woman four years his senior would be attracted to him. Instead we are treated to someone who, in Padme's own words, "will always be that little boy on Tatooine." Please. I always felt like he was using her to replace the mother figure in his life, and she didn't do much to deflate that idea.
Padme's character seemed to get weaker and weaker as the series went on. Even her voice changed from eps 1 to 2, from strong and commanding to soft and breathy. I get that George was trying to show how she'd turned into this desirable young woman, but I spent the whole film wanting to punch her in the gut so she'd speak from the diaphram.
I don't mind the idea of Ani's fear of losing Padme being his primary motivation to turn to the dark side, but it was not developed well at all. There was no inner conflict; there was always just Anakin being a brat. He was a brat when he was a Jedi, a brat when he was on the council, a brat in every encounter with Obi-Wan, and it didn't take much to transfer his brattiness over. The only wonder is that he didn't do it sooner, or that the Jedi council didn't recognize years before that he was always going to be a problem and kick him out. Maybe they did, and figured it was best to keep friends close and enemies closer.
It's funny how fired-up we fans get about this stuff. I think those of us who remember the old films with such fondness and looked forward to the prequels so eagerly are always going to be a little bitter about what might have been.
I'm with you, Inky. Yoda is my reason for watching the prequels at all.
