@Joseph Raszagal  
Well, like I said like father like son. (Granted, Annakin watched his mother die, and such so he was pretty messed up.)

@Beau Skunky  
Eh, we just disagree then. That’s cool, yo.
 
Luke was totally a whiner at first though. You nailed it on that one xD .

@Joseph Raszagal  
The game had alot of unique character designs too. (Taken from the movie.)
 
I think I liked C3PO better then Luke & Han honestly. Luke was kinda a whiner, (much like his old man) and Han was kinda a selfish jerk at first, (“Better her then me”) but regardless I enjoy some things about them, and I respect them better now.
 
I feel the opposite, I find space soap opras quite boring, so I don’t mind having a tiny bit of humor, at least.

@Beau Skunky  
Upgrading them did feel pretty sweet. Made playing the game feel more rewarding and whatnot, like, “Cool, I kicked the shit out of those guys. Now I can afford parts to kick the shit out of them even better.” xD
 
Actually, I’ve never really been much of a fan of C3P0 either. Maybe I’m just a stick in the mud? I dunno, I just like my space wizard adventures to have as few irritating characters as possible.
 
As far as the TV series goes, I wouldn’t know. Never really gave it a chance. I did hear that Anakin was a great deal more tolerable though, which is cool.

@Joseph Raszagal  
It was kinda cool how you could upgrade your podracers too with your prize money.
 
I just saw Jar Jar as something to make the movie more enjoyable for kids, as honestly when I was little, I found SW movies incredibly boring. I suppose they overdid him looking back, but honestly he didn’t ruin the movie at all for me. He was just kinda there.  
Heck, before he existed, some used to bash C3PO, and consider him an annoying “comic relief” character. (Though, I guess some SW fans hate any form of humor.) Even stuff like the old 1990s Simpsons took a shot at C3PO. Though, C3PO kinda balanced the humor better then Jar Jar did.
 
I actually hear Jar Jar was more tolerable, in the “Clone Wars” TV series. (Though, didn’t appear much in it.)

@Beau Skunky  
Dude, the N64 game is awesome. The arcade version, with the pod cabinet that you actually sat in, even more so =D .
 
Really? You didn’t despise Jar-Jar? ’Cause, man, it felt to me like he was almost designed to destroy the dramatic tension of any scene he showed up in. Kinda like:
 
Jar-Jar: “Getting-a too interesting or tense-a? No worries! Me-sa fix that and make a bad joke-a!”
 
He just felt really out of place, like trying to fit six different comedy relief characters all into one (while simultaneously failing six different times).

@Joseph Raszagal  
I liked the podracing too actually. In fact, I liked the N64 game, despite it’s difficulty.
 
Honestly, I wasn’t really that bothered by Jar Jar Binks though.

@Prometheus labs CEO  
Any point that pushes him off to the side is a pretty decent point. I just wish those pushes were closer to a really steep cliffside.

@Joseph Raszagal  
Exactly, and it was one of the few parts of the movie where jar jar wasn’t a large focus

@Prometheus labs CEO  
To be fair, the pod racing scene is the coolest scene in the first movie. I mean, it’s flying racecars on another planet, how could that not be cool?

The only good thing to come out of that movie

@kircher  
Totally forgot about Lee D= . Just consider him above Liam and Sam Jackson in that list. After all, Christopher Lee could do no wrong.
 
And yeah, Jango was pretty cool, but it’s like you said, he’s just kind of there for a little while… and then he dies. It’s unfortunate, but whatever. We had him on screen for a little bit, right? It’s those small victories.
 
As for Sam Jackson, I can almost guarantee that you’re correct with that assumption. He wanted to be magical space paladin with a nifty laser sword, so consarnit, he was going to do it, awful script be damned! And it really is a shame too. It would have been beyond cool to have all these boring, mopey Jedi lounging around talking about space politics, then BAM!, Sam Jackson explodes into the scene and starts shouting at absolutely everyone xD . Mace, you could have been awesome… but Lucas never let your star begin to shine.

@Joseph Raszagal  
I would pretty much agree with your listing. Wasn’t really jake Lloyd’s fault, really. It should have been obvious from a screen t4est the kid couldn’t act as “shrub #1” in a grade school pay, let alone a major film. He’s terrible in Jingle All the Way, too. I liked seeing Christopher Lee, but it wasn’t one of his most memorable performances. He was just there to add gravitas, I think. His role could have been played by any other older British actor. I looked quickly through the cast lists, and I really can’t find anyone that stands out. There are quite a few good actors in the prequels (Hugh Quarshie, Ralph Brown, Bruce Spence, for example) but they are given nothing memorable to do.
 
I thought Temuera Morrison was very good as Jango Fett, but again, he’s given nothing to do except get his head lopped off (oops, spoilers). The kid that played Boba Fett was absolutely awful, little punk. Oh and whoever played Dexter Jettster, the diner owner in AotC, deserves a lot of credit. He sketches out an interesting character in about two minutes of screentime, which is more than some of the leads manage to do over three films.
 
Samuel L. Jackson can be an awesome actor, but here, I think he just wanted to be in it so he could have a purple lightsaber and cross it off his bucket list. Mace Windu is a nothing character, and his delivery is flat and distracted, like he realizes how bad the liens he’s saying are.
 
Ah well ,they are what they are. Watchable but not memorable.

@kircher  
It’s unfortunate. It would have been cool to see Qui-Gon erupt, at least once. The guy had so much chill.
 
And yeah, dude, McDiarmid was amazing as the Emperor. Like I said, he was the one character that I pretty much liked consistently throughout the prequels. Qui-Gon was cool, but alas, he only lasted one movie. And you already know I liked Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan, but even Obi had his dumb / cheesy moments.
 
Nah, it was Palpatine that kept me watching the movies. We all already knew who he was, so we expected dramatic evil out of him. He didn’t disappoint. McDiarmid could be quiet, conniving, and manipulative, but then loud, commanding, and crazy in the very next scene. I just think he was a joy to watch. Whenever I watch the prequels, he’s my favorite part =D .
 
Of the actors that I can remember, if I had to rank their performances, I’d say it’d go like this:
 
1) Ian McDiarmid (No. 1, just… dude, he’s No. 1)
 
2) Ewan McGregor (a good performance with a limited script)
 
3) Liam Neeson (the token soft-spoken, quiet badass)
 
4) Samuel L. Jackson (a movie where Sam Jackson doesn’t raise his voice is kind of missing the point when it comes to casting Sam Jackson)
 
5) Hayden Christensen (again, I can’t blame just this guy too much; one can only do so much when your character has been given the worst lines in an already bad script)
 
6) Natalie Portman (I can’t believe I live in a world where the actress from Black Swan put forth a performance this completely bad; I rank Padme worse than Anakin because at least, if hammy, Christensen could still explode with some kind of energy… Portman’s Padme was always dead in the expression department)
 
7) Whoever Cameo’d as Chewbacca (that brief moment did more for me than both of what follows)
 
8) Jake Lloyd (let’s be fair, while he was one of the most irritating things about the first movie, we only had to suffer through young Annie once… and, well, it was a kid actor)
 
9) Ahmed Best (I’m sorry, Mr. Best, but I am obligated to hate you for playing Jar-Jar)

@Joseph Raszagal  
I an see what you mean. It would have been nice if Qui-Gon did have explosive moments–might have shown him as an un9intentional bad influence on Anakin.
 
Ian McDiarmid is a great actor, and probably the one thing that makes all the prequels watchable. He’s a pro, mostly stage actor, and I’ve never seen him give a bad performance. I saw him in an old episode of the British TV show The Professionals, where he played a man killing the doctors he blamed for his daughter’s fatal illness, and he was great. He was also good as the deadpan butler in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, too. But the Emperor was one of those roles where the actor fit the role and vice-versa just perfectly, and McDiarmid was smart enough to bite fully into the role, but not get hammy (something even Alec McGuiness could do at times), that “POWER UNLIMITED” scene you mention excepted.

@kircher  
I dunno if I agree with that though. While most of Neeson’s performances are all pretty subdued (‘cause it’s kind of his thing; the quiet badass), he still has range and can be explosive when he wants to be.
 
Qui-Gon, even when it called for it, never really got loud.
 
Again, I dunno. That’s just my opinion.
 
One thing I can point out that I liked, however, even in the prequels, was Ian McDiarmid’s performance as Emperor (then Senator) Palpatine. I don’t know if it was due to Lucas’ directing, or just the actor being that good, but I loved his performance and I kind of felt like it was his job to try and save what little good was left in the films. Yes, the whole “No, no, it is YOU who shall die!” and “POWER UNLIMITED!” scene was pretty stupid, but aside from that ridiculous moment, I pretty much liked Palpatine throughout the prequels.
 
A scene that comes to mind is during the opera thingy where he’s explaining to Anakin the history of Darth Plagueis. The scene is quiet, reserved, very ominous, and it actually kind of builds on the Star Wars mythos (and the fact that it’s the guy who becomes the Emperor that’s doing the building, to me, just makes it cooler). Even Hayden’s acting in the scene isn’t that bad. His dialogue, compared to Palpatine’s, is very limited and he mostly just reacts in quiet awe towards the weight of what he’s being told.
 
It was a good scene.

@Joseph Raszagal  
I think Neeson was trying to play it like a samurai, sleepy and lackadaisical until roused to action. A director who was better with actors would have seen it didn’t play well in the rushes and taken corrective action, though.

@Jarkes  
Ah, shit, was it? It must’ve been longer than I thought since I’ve seen them then.
 
My bad.

@Joseph Raszagal
 
The death-sticks moment was Obi-Wan actually.

@kircher  
Coarse and itchy and absolutely all over the place, yo.
 
I think another good example of Lucas’ direction failing the films is Liam Neeson’s acting. While Qui-Gon does come off as dignified and wise, his expression never changes from “bored and about to fall asleep”. Plus, while the he has a small handful of joke moments whenever he’s just idly chatting with another character, the monotone delivery kills almost all of them. The only two funny moments with Qui-Gon that I actually think are funny are when he grabs Jar-Jar’s tongue and commands him to not do that again (mostly because I hate Jar-Jar) and when he Jedi mind-tricks the guy at the bar trying to sell him death sticks.
 
If Liam’s director is telling him that his character needs to come off as half asleep, well, there’s just not much he can do to save the performance =/ .

@Joseph Raszagal  
Yep, but to be fair, that sand was rough and irritating and got everywhere.

@kircher  
Exactly, yo. As much as I’d like to blame Hayden Christensen, I can’t. Lucas is just so much more at fault than any of his actors.

@Joseph Raszagal  
Good point–hard to give a good performance trying to say some of that dialogue.

@kircher  
To be fair, almost all of the performances were awful. I mean, Lucas managed to make Natalie Portman seem dull and lifeless.
 
The lady’s won Academy Awards for films like Black Swan, yo.

Ewan McGregor was very good, probably the best thing in the films acting-wise, but watching Hayden Christensen is still painful, even 14 years later. Especially when he’s supposed to look angry. Instead he looks like a kid about to tantrum because his Mom wouldn’t buy him a new Power Zord. I mean, that’s not all his fault–Lucas could have given him some direction other than to look both bored and dull, but it still sucks the life out of the films.