It is finished. Red Letter Media finally completed their review trilogy of the Star Wars prequels. The masterpiece is complete. Now the healing can begin.
If you don’t know what this is about, you need to watch the review of The Phantom Menace. This was the review that got Red Letter Media known and it’s still a great lesson on how not to do storytelling.
The Red Letter Media reviews are what I would call the new generation of criticism. It differs from the criticism in traditional media in a couple of points. First, it’s longer, more exhaustive and much more niche. The Red Letter Media reviews take the movies apart scene by scene, even commenting individual lines. That’s something that until now would have been possible only in form of secondary literature.
But the new form of criticism doesn’t follow an academic agenda. Yes it does teach a lot but it is aimed at a much wider, causal audience. And so in also includes a LOT of quite aggressive humor. It even includes something almost unthinkable in old-school criticism: fiction. Many Internet critics take on a persona in their reviews. The reviews themselves often even include a story in themselves. The Red Letter Media reviews are a fabulous example. Even with the trilogy over, I do want to know how the story of Mr. Plinkett continues. Thankfully, there seems to be a follow-up coming up.
But until then we have a perfect treatment of the Star Wars prequels. The reviews go straight to where it hurts. They point out why the movies failed to resonate with the Star Wars audience. I found it quite cathartic how the most recent review put into words the exactly the same thoughts I had at the beginning of Return of the Sith. It is truly a great finale of the review trilogy as it finally exposes the most fundamental flaws of the prequels – their over-indulgence in the not very interesting story of Darth Vader.
So with the prequels being written off, I guess it’s time somebody else takes over and re-makes them how they should have been. Move over Lucas. It’s time Plinkett takes over.
