Escape to the Movies: The Phantom Menace 13 Years Later

MovieBob

New member
Dec 31, 2008
11,495
0
0
The Phantom Menace 13 Years Later

The Phantom Menace isn't nearly as bad as you think it is.

Watch Video
 

unacomn

New member
Mar 3, 2008
974
0
0
Phantom Menace is probably the one I disliked the least, until a few years later, I kinda liked it. What really killed the SW prequels for me was Anakin becoming Vader mostly because he acted like 12 year old on the internet who couldn't find any rational reason behind his actions and statements, so he started to throw tantrums, threats and called everyone a Nazi... then he killed a bunch of kids for the fun of it.

I could stomach JarJar, he was sometimes funny, I could stand little Any, I could overlook the plotholes, but making that wuss Vader was just painful. That retroactively poisoned the prequels for me, to the point where all I feel for them is apathy.
 

Canadamus Prime

Robot in Disguise
Jun 17, 2009
14,334
0
0
I never did think it was all that bad. I do however think the re-releasing it 3D is entirely superfluous though.
 

Rabidkitten

New member
Sep 23, 2010
143
0
0
I actually disliked Revenge of the Sith the most. Because in the end it all just didn't pan out. You got to watch the whole sloppy thing drag its way past the finish line, and it just made the prior 2 worse. If Revenge of the Sith was a wonderful and engaging film, the first 2 would have been pardoned of their weakness in an effort to justify the greatness that was the 3rd film. Buuuut, they didn't and the 3rd film was god awful.

Return of the Jedi is a pretty lousy film but its ok because the first 2 are so good.

In the end its the fans fault. They begged and pleaded George to make more who was reluctant and wanted to hand off the new ones to a new director (which he should have done and just produced it). But its bridge under the water, though I believe that if Knights of the Old Republic does well, they're maybe films in that setting. Lucas won't direct them, but it has fan appeal, and I think the Phantom Menace 3D is a litmus test for seeing how the public takes to Star Wars nowadays considering Clone Wars was such a hideous bomb. Just a theory.
 

Kinokohatake

New member
Jul 11, 2010
577
0
0
Movie Bob, you have convinced me. Tonight I shall go see it with my 3 little ones and give it another chance. Also, Return of the Jedi isn't as good as everyone remembers.
 

richard misiak

New member
Dec 24, 2008
128
0
0
I never thought the film was that bad, and i maintain hat the lightsaber duel at the end is the finest one from the entire saga
 

Larmo

New member
May 20, 2008
426
0
0
I was never that angry about the Phantom Menace and when i started hanging out on the internet i was surprised at all the hate, i didn't grow up watching the star wars movies, my parents were Trekes, so i watched TNG and DS9 with them. But when phantom menace was announced they bought the original trilogy and let me and my sister watch it. I enjoyed it and considered it a fun movie series, then i watched Phantom, and was entertained for a few hours like any 12 year old was with a fun colorful action movie, i didn't find Jar Jar particularly offensive or entertaining, i just considered it a fun if rather brainless sifi movie and i carry that opinion to this day.
 

Hithlain

Keeper of Ying
Nov 25, 2008
324
0
0
Amen brother. I feel the same way about the Hobbit movie that is about to come out. I was 14 when the last LOTR was released and now I'm 22. I'm going to have to steel myself to the fact that it's not going to feel the same as last time, no matter what.

Granted, it still looks like an awesome movie.



Star Wars has sort of the same issues, as you've said.
 
Jan 27, 2011
3,740
0
0
*shrug*

I never hated Phantom menace. It wasn't amazing, but it wasn't bad either.

The only star wars movie I outright hated was the last of the prequel movies. I mean...really? The way anakin does his about-face doesn't feel realistic (he goes from "WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?!" to "LETS MURDER THE KIDDIES!" in the span of five minutes), the whole padme-anakin dynamic feels like it doesn't work at all, etc etc etc.

Oh, and I actually don't mind Jar Jar at all.
 

IamLEAM1983

Neloth's got swag.
Aug 22, 2011
2,581
0
0
Phantom Menace wasn't exactly good, but it wasn't an atrocious pile of dung heap, either. Yes, it's rife with poor attempts at comedic displays or supposedly quirky one-note characters to amuse the kiddies and everyone is fairly wooden - but beyond that?

Go back and watch the first trilogy. You'll realize PM is textbook Star Wars, in that it's just lukewarm, in terms of acting and overall conceptualization. I don't know at which point people started turning the first three movies into some sort of untouchable trifecta of concentrated godliness - but the core universe stuff is about as good as your average middling fanfic.

I think the whole "JAR JAR BINKS, HNNNNG!" thing has largely turned into a self-deprecating joke. If it hasn't, some people are likely to be investing themselves far too much in the series, to begin with.

Bob's right. Maintaining so much hatred is the path to the Dark Side. It doesn't mean we have to start loving the heck out of the second trilogy, but anyone maintaining a sanctimoniously hateful attitude needs to wake up and realize the entire thing has never been meant to be anything more than silly, actiony popcorn flicks. If anything, blame anyone who's worked on the Expanded Universe for making the intricacies of Star Wars matter so much to so many people.
 

A Curious Fellow

New member
Nov 16, 2010
284
0
0
I was shocked to agree with all of your points. by themselves.

As right as you are however, Phantom Menace doesn't exist in a vacuum. (even if half of its action scenes do)

As a followup to the film series that brought Sci-Fi to the realm of legitimacy and attracted an entire generation of film artists to their true calling, Phantom Menace was in a (completely unfair but still completely true) position where it had to wow. It had to be what the community had come to expect. It had to be made of the same magic. But it wasn't. And while it was only a mediocre film, due to its position in the culture of the world, being pretty good but not great indeed made it, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the most disappointing thing since my son.

To live with it, I've simply written Star Wars off. It's for others now. The magic is never coming back. The last time I was excited for Star Wars was at the beginning of a trailer for The Old Republic, but it died all at once when some guy started fighting with three lightsabers. At that moment I realized that what I loved about the series wasn't in it or in me any longer. The mysticism had been replaced with flash and the high thoughts replaced with one liners. The entire mythos is either corrupted or was never really what I thought it was. I don't know which, but they're both awful options. So, goodbye. No more dreams about a galaxy far far away.

TL;DR It was never going to be just another movie to be judged on its own merits. It was supposed to be a grand homecoming. It wasn't. That is the failure. But either way, even if I'm wrong about that, it's time for us to move on. Star wars isn't for us anymore. That's all there is to it.
 

Jamane

New member
Sep 24, 2010
49
0
0
erf why did you mnention the eragon movie that was a special kind of bad... but yeah phantom menace I actualy didn't mind to quite liked in places though I do beleive it dosn't hold a candle two to the first three.
 

Mischlings

New member
Feb 18, 2011
86
0
0
A few months ago I watched the entire series again from beginning to end, and I came to the same conclusion about the prequels: they weren't horrible, they were mediocre to average and the only reason they were hated is that they were part of Star Wars and didn't live up to that legacy.

I look at it this way: if we never had the original trilogy and instead Phantom Menace came first, what would it have been? I think it would've ended there and barely been remembered as a mediocre sci-fi movie.

Also, good to know I'm not alone in hating Attack of the Clones, but I hate it mostly because the romance is awful and takes up too much of the movie. That just killed the entire movie for me.
 

Orks da best

New member
Oct 12, 2011
689
0
0
Go moviebob go, like you i am sick of all the star wars hate, and because i grew up on the prequels i like them more though the orgianls are still good though. Droids are awesome.
 

CronoT

New member
May 15, 2010
161
0
0
unacomn said:
Phantom Menace is probably the one I disliked the least, until a few years later, I kinda liked it. What really killed the SW prequels for me was Anakin becoming Vader mostly because he acted like 12 year old on the internet who couldn't find any rational reason behind his actions and statements, so he started to throw tantrums, threats and called everyone a Nazi... then he killed a bunch of kids for the fun of it.

I could stomach JarJar, he was sometimes funny, I could stand little Any, I could overlook the plotholes, but making that wuss Vader was just painful. That retroactively poisoned the prequels for me, to the point where all I feel for them is apathy.
I think that the point of the prequel movies is that people who you set up as some long sought Messiah type character often as not end up being either a disappointment, or end up with entitlement issues and seriously screw over everyone around them.

As for Anakin/Vader, the general consensus about his prophecy of The Chosen One WAS fulfilled in the overall narrative, since by the end of Episode III, the Jedi HAD started an inexorable slide into fascism and what technically does amount to a form of theocracy. The evidence trotted out most often is when Mace Windu declared that Palpatine had to die, because he was too dangerous. In the context of the Light Side/Dark Side ethos, that would have pushed Mace Windu to the Dark Side, and the cycle would have simply repeated all over again.
 

Random berk

New member
Sep 1, 2010
9,636
0
0
Enlightening stuff Bob. I'm still not going to go and see it, but your point was well made.

Oh, I just have to say this though. Jango Fett? He may have been 'unnecessary' but he was way more badass than Boba Fett.