A Small Defense of the Star Wars Prequels

***Sigh*** There are lots of problems with TPM, but its failure to be mythic isn’t one of them because that’s, in fact, the point of the entire prequel trilogy — demythologizing what we thought we knew about the Old Republic, the Jedi, and the rise of the Empire. The Old Republic wasn’t a “more civilized age,” it was a corrupt and flawed entity riven with divisions. The Jedi weren’t “guardians of peace and justice,” they were guardians of the status quo to the extent that ...