Victor Wembanyama's Taste In Star Wars Movies Is By Far The Biggest Red Flag On His Scouting Report
Forget the whole "BIG MEN ALWAYS GET HURT" argument if you're trying to gaslight yourself into believing Victor Wembanyama will be some massive NBA Draft bust. The guy is the best prospect since LeBron and I don't think many will argue about that.
For as much as I love Wemby's game, believe he's going to be a top-10 NBA player as soon as his rookie season and couldn't be more impressed by his other little segments from JJ Redick's podcast like this one...
...I am legitimately baffled, alarmed and taken aback by his takes on a galaxy far, far away.
Like OK. The political intrigue of Revenge of the Sith and the fact that Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader in that movie are huge Star Wars story points. Wemby grew up on the prequels more than the original trilogy, so I can at least kinda see the bias there.
But to say Attack of the Clones is the second-best Star Wars movie!?!?
In the opinions of many, Episode II is the worst, or thereabouts alongside The Phantom Menace.
For as wise beyond his years and Jedi-esque Wemby is at age 19, the precocious prince of basketball's future has a ways to go in my book when it comes to appreciating Star Wars. It's legitimately worrisome that The Empire Strikes Back is his third-favorite film out of six. That's right. Six. Because he doesn't even count the sequel trilogy that Disney pumped out in more recent years.
It wasn't until The Clone Wars animated series that I grew to appreciate the prequels more and what George Lucas was trying to do. The show better fleshed out Anakin's character and fall to the dark side, introduced the iconic Ahsoka Tano and did all the world building Lucas hoped to do in the prequels but couldn't fit into three movies.
Too bad the explosion of streaming era wasn't around during the prequels. Lucas and Dave Filoni might've had a shot at giving us some of those rich stories in live action with Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen still age-appropriate to star as Obi-Wan and Anakin respectively. Oh well. At least Filoni gets his Ahsoka series now.
Anyway, Wembanyama shouldn't cast the sequels aside. That trilogy is more cohesive and better in quality than anyone wants to admit. The prequels were widely panned upon release and aged like a fine wine. I suspect something similar will happen to the sequels. When you're comparing those trilogies, the more recent ones feature far better acting and dialogue.
Like come on…I won't go for the low-hanging fruit of some of those Anakin-Padme scenes from Attack of the Clones. Actually, you know what? I will…
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How about we jump to Anakin's dark turn where he tries to persuade Padme to join him in forging a new Empire? This happens in Wemby's favorite flick, Revenge of the Sith:
Now compare that to when Kylo asks Rey to join him in The Last Jedi:
TLJ is one of the best Star Wars movies. Period. The creatives at Lucasfilm simply took the wrong approach by not having a solid, three-movie plan before embarking upon The Force Awakens. Given how chaotic it all was to go from JJ Abrams to Rian Johnson for The Last Jedi and back to JJ for The Rise of Skywalker, we're lucky to have gotten anything semi-coherent out of it.
If Wembanyama clarifies that he's a Clone Wars stan I'll give him more of a pass. For now, this is a raging, smoking-gun red flag that has me concerned about how the French phenom will acclimate to his new digs in San Antonio. Gregg Popovich should get his best people on this. A little last-minute groupthink to determine if the Spurs should, in fact, trade the No. 1 pick for the mother lode of all mother lodes.
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Why yes, I'll provide my tiered rankings of all the major Star Wars media so you have a little more context on where I'm coming from.
Feel free to debate in the comments where you have everything ranked. Can't recommend Clone Wars and Rebels highly enough before Ahsoka drops in August, by the way.
Twitter @MattFitz_gerald/TikTok