Escape to the Movies: The Phantom Menace 13 Years Later

[Pedro The Hutt]

That said, I'm fairly sure most of us stopped bashing it years ago. Up until Plinkett came along I thought I had said everything there was to be said about what was wrong with the film years ago. And then he proved me wrong and showed me stuff that was wrong with the prequels that I hadn't even considered.

But eh, Plinkett aside (seeing how he kind of rekindled it with some people), I honestly don't know anyone who's been non-stop bashing the prequels at any given opportunity since 1999. Show me these people Bob!

 

[Indignator]

Agreed. The whole sequence on Endor is atrocious.

i take offense to this. if you want to slam the ewoks and stormtrooper having useless armor go right ahead, but that entire sequence is not atrocious. The final showdown of Luke and Vader is best lightsaber fight in the entire series. And i hold that the rebel vs empire fleet engagement is the best space fight ever put to film.

By Endor sequence I mean the scenes that take place on Endor (or more correctly the Forest Moon of Endor). The space battle was excellent and the Vader/Palpatine/Luke scenes are the saving grace of the film.

I agree with Rayen. Endor atrocious? Either your standards are set way too high or you are exaggerating to try and make a point.

Maybe I am exaggerating a little bit. Nonetheless I dislike most of it. Ewoks are more annoying than Gungans (though I don't mind the concept of the Ewoks defeating the Stormtroopers - David and Goliath and all that); Harrison Ford plays a Flanderized Han Solo, which includes the completely unnecessary "I love you/I know" reference (an early example of regurgitation of things from previous movies which was on full display in the prequels and Indiana Jones 4); tone varies significantly between wacky hijinks (an Ewok gets tangled in his own slungshot) and deathly serious (an Ewok gets blasted to death and another mourns him with tragic music swelling). I could go on about other things (C3PO gets confused for a god cliche, the pointlessness of the speeder bike chase) but I think you get the idea.

 

[FFHAuthor]

That said, I'm fairly sure most of us stopped bashing it years ago. Up until Plinkett came along I thought I had said everything there was to be said about what was wrong with the film years ago. And then he proved me wrong and showed me stuff that was wrong with the prequels that I hadn't even considered.

But eh, Plinkett aside (seeing how he kind of rekindled it with some people), I honestly don't know anyone who's been non-stop bashing the prequels at any given opportunity since 1999. Show me these people Bob!

I think most fans had moved on from the Prequels in a reasonable amount of time, deciding they were mediocre and moved on with their lives and the wider and better written (and more coherent) universe beyond the movies...but Lucas keeps dragging open old wounds and pulling all us fans back to the films. Re-releases, edits, new editions, comments about 'what really happened', how on earth is that gonna be revived by the majority of Star Wars fans who were disappointed by your prequel films and just want to forget them. Just about the only time I read about anger over the films is in reaction to something that Lucas has said or come up with, not a random fan posting their seething, life consuming rage at all things Episode 1-3 related.

It's not so much that Fans have been bitter for 13 years, as it's fans keep trying to move on and Lucas keeps bringing up all the things that the fanbase gets enraged over instead of letting sleeping dogs lie.

 

[dragonburner]

Sure, you're right. It isn't the worst movie of all time. I agree that episode II was worse, but for different reasons then the ones you stated. However, shouldn't we hold art to higher standards then not being absolute trash? Shouldn't we have a little more integrity to insist that we don't want to sit through absolute crap, especially because we know that Lucas can do better then that? I hate fan boy whining and moaning and self entitlement just as much as you, but shouldn't we draw the line of acceptance of mediocrity somewhere?

 

[Elyxard]

I think most fans had moved on from the Prequels in a reasonable amount of time, deciding they were mediocre and moved on with their lives and the wider and better written (and more coherent) universe beyond the movies...but Lucas keeps dragging open old wounds and pulling all us fans back to the films. Re-releases, edits, new editions, comments about 'what really happened', how on earth is that gonna be revived by the majority of Star Wars fans who were disappointed by your prequel films and just want to forget them. Just about the only time I read about anger over the films is in reaction to something that Lucas has said or come up with, not a random fan posting their seething, life consuming rage at all things Episode 1-3 related.

It's not so much that Fans have been bitter for 13 years, as it's fans keep trying to move on and Lucas keeps bringing up all the things that the fanbase gets enraged over instead of letting sleeping dogs lie.

I very much agree with this. Most of us want to move on, but George Lucas isn't satisfied with just destroying the prequel story of Star Wars, he's actually going back and destroying the original trilogy with every damned re-release. I wouldn't care about the prequels at all if not for his horrendous and unnecessary retcons to the source material.

There is so much evidence that George is doing this on purpose, as though he wants to bury the original trilogy; possibly due to resentment towards his ex-wife who played a role in making them what they are. Lucas strikes me as the passive aggressive type like that. I can't think of a bigger middle finger to the OT than "midichlorians". If he truly loved his creation of Star Wars, he wouldn't be doing half of everything he's done in the last 15 years.

 

[Therumancer]

But let's be honest. The film is not "slightly below average". It's pretty significantly below average. The excellent visuals (especially the lightsaber duels, which are honestly superior to those of the original trilogy, and no I don't want to hear people yell at me about saying that, because let's be honest, it's the truth) and stellar music score are not enough to save the incredibly bland story and hollow characters.

Nothing Bob has really said is new, but to be honest I think even he kind of undermines his overall point by saying that Phantom Menace is an average or below average movie, when by rights it should have been at least an above average one.

QFT.

Bob is only 75% right here. Indeed, I'll argue that Episode I is actually equally as bad as any of the other prequels -- that is, it's no better than whichever other one you think is worse -- because Episode I was first.

Episode I isn't terrible because it's merely a shitty movie. Episode I is terrible because it hurt canon.

Bob gets this half-right. Were fanboys upset? Yes. But here's the thing Bob missed: not all of the fanboys, or even the more mundane fans and afficionados, were upset because of lost nostalgia. They were upset because the Star Wars narrative -- the cycle of stories and related media -- just got worse.

Were you playing a Star Wars rpg? It just got worse.

Were you reading a Star Wars novel? It just got worse.

And so on. This is why the mitochlorians (sp) thing, for example, was aggravating. Sure, Lucas dropped it, but not everything went with it. Sure, you could "play your own game" and try to ignore that crap, but future, official offerings would be burdened with Lucas' bad writing.

What you have to understand is Lucas didn't create every aspect of the Star Wars universe and, ironically enough, the very best parts of the story weren't written by him. At all. So when Lucas went in and did the writing, he undermined the very thing that was carrying the entire enterprise.

It's not what Lucas did to nostalgia -- trust me, many of us aren't taken back to a Happy Place when we watch Star Wars. It's what Lucas did to the story.

Exactly, and as I point out to people making arguements like Bob's, it's not JUST the prequels being sub part. Lucas took all the feces from his prequels and then around the same time decided to smear it all over the originals, leading to people demanding they want the original versions of the original movies back. Jar Jar hasn't acheived the level of hate he has now because he was a bad character, though he was that, if that was it he would have been scorned for a while and then more or less been forgotten except for some snide jokes. Rather he represents what George brought to the entire Star Wars universe around the same basic time frame as the prequels. Your nostolgia is now tainted because unless you have a very old copy your keeping protected, every time you watch Star Wars, when Obi-Wan and Luke ride into Mos Eisley there are going to be tons of Jar Jar like cutesy critters everywhere.

To be honest I think there is even more to this than that though. See, when George decided to do things outside the original movies, it was almost always cutesy stuff. The "Star Wars Chrismas Special", or "Ewok Adventure" movie. People were able to look at that and forgive it as a fluke because of the pure awesoe that was the original triology, and the apologies over the Ewoks along with the explanation as to why they existed. But now we're seeing that the stuff that blew chips was how George Lucas was wired, and that he just did not get what made his work popular and famous.

Overall I think the Star Wars fandom can be summarized as being there because Star Wars was the first major, mainstream work to take the subject seriously. There ARE exceptions as movie buffs like Bob can tell you, but the bottom line is that before Star Wars, science fiction and space fantasy was full of cheezy, overwrought crap with horrible budgets and special FX. Space ships that were totally lulzworthy to say the least, and props that were oftentimes literally made of tin foil. With Star Wars, from the very first time you saw the bulk of an Imperial Star Destroyer go by, the impression it gives is "wow, someone takes this stuff seriously" and that is what causes the immersion and causes people to overlook a lot of the flaws. Before "Star Wars" you could only really find this kind of experience in books. Also the prescence of a veteran Alec Guiness, and a young Harrison Ford did a lot to add class to the production and cause people to take it seriously.

Aside from the prequels, you have to understand that George is under fire for things like changing the scene between Han Solo and Greedo. See, Han wasn't the deepest character in the world, but he was a kind of hero you normally didn't see in this kind of thing. His rather badass "preemptive shot from under the table" moment delivered by Harrison Ford was one of the things that wowed people when they saw it because it was the kind of thing you'd expect in a totally differant kind of movie and drew a great parallel to the fairy tale "mystic space knights, evil sorcerors in black, and princesses" stuff. It's one of those moments like Harrison Ford's famous bit of improv in shooting a certain scimitar wielding arab assasin in "Indiana Jones" that helped cement the movie. Indeed I wouldn't be surprised if that bit with Greedo is one of the reasons why people noticed Harrison Ford early in his career. George changing this was just pure heresy, the kind of thing you do when you want to INSULT fans, and the fact that he seems oblivious just makes it worse...

The reason why all that applies to The Phantom Menace, is that Phantom Menace represents the point where George started to take a wrecking ball to the entire thing, and thus winds up becoming the focal point for the damage done to Star Wars in general. It has the misfortune of being the first real link in the chain in people's experiences.

Of course then again, as I've said before, George seems to have changed from the guy who did that original "Star Destroyer" thing, to someone more interested in selling toys and making tons of money. I don't think he cares about the fans as long as money is made, or leaving behind a worthwhile, lasting legacy. He's willing to despoil the whole thing for a quick buck and his own financial legacy, especially seeing as he's getting older and really isn't going to be around to face anyone over it.

 

[Masterdebator]

Have to disagree about the light saber fights. They feel completely sterile in the prequels and lack any real tension. They look more like a ballet instead of a battle.

The Phantom Menace is a terrible film through and through, though shockingly, Attack of the Clones manages to be worse with one of the worst romances ever written and even worse acting/ directing.

Frankly, the only good thing the Phantom Menace is for was birthing the Plinkett reviews, depicting the many layers of failure the film has.

There is some sense in "taking the higher road", but it's hard to do so when so many mediocre pieces of Star Wars media are constantly being pushed out, not to mention unwanted 3D re-releases of terrible films and unnecessary/ borderline insane re-editing to the original trilogy.

 

[SiskoBlue]

The thing I've never understood is why people think Star Wars A new hope is a great film. It's good, very good, but some of the acting and dialogue is atrociously wooden and hammy. Lucas's whacking editing swipes may have seemed clever to some but seem amateurish to me. The amazing thing it did was make sci-fi a serious genre as opposed to shlock b-movie drive-in fodder. To this day I just think Lucas got lucky with cultural timing. People really wanted something like this.

The only reason Star Wars became a franchise was because Empire Strikes Back IS a great film. The acting and dialogue are ten times better, the pacing is pitch perfect, the tone is darker without being overly melodramatic. And the editing, audio, cinematography, direction (not Lucas) surpass most films even to this day.

Despite all that they're hero fantasy films, not poignant commentaries on society. Star Wars is alright but being overly passionate about Star Wars is the same as being overly passionate about transformers. They sell toys. Maybe they have very personal and subjective meanings to you but let's not pretend they answer the deep mysteries of life.

 

[jaketaz]

Just because it was impossible for this movie to live up to everyone's expectations, that doesn't mean they couldn't have still made a decent movie. Whether Phantom Menace is the most terrible thing ever made or not, it is still lazy sub-par film-making (or at least lazy sub-par storytelling). Bad acting, bad composition, plot holes galore, bad script, bad casting, and non-existent character development. No one care about Qui-gon Jinn, no one cares about Amidala.

And as far as the CGI goes,how many movies like "Chronicle" need to to come out before people acknowledge the reality that good character development will always outshine production values? Compared to Phantom Menace, it had a paltry budget of $15 million and was able to weave 100x more compelling narrative. Phantom Menace isn't the scourge of the earth, but it is reprehensibly lazy. With massive amounts of money and resources, they still couldn't tell a good story or even an interesting one.

 

[deadish]

Not a Star Wars fan. But from my perspective, people are angry because George Lucas messed up their favorite fantasy fiction.

It would not be so bad if it was just a "bad movie", but when he added the midichlorians rubbish, among other things, retconning the lore in the process. He crossed the line.

He is not building on the original trilogy, he is gutting them.

On another note, IMHO these pre-sequals should not never have been made as their existence basically spoils one of the biggest plot twist in the original trilogy. So not only do the pre-sequals mess up the lore, it also spoils the enjoyment of original films.

And of course, the horrible script, acting and directing in the pre-sequals as pointed out in the Plinkett reviews definitely isn't helping things.

 

[malestrithe]

I'll just leave this here:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-things-star-wars-fans-need-to-accept-about-george-lucas/

 

[Meander112]

I have only one thing to say.

Will someone please link to that Avengers clip? I'd like to see it higher quality.

 

[sunsetspawn]

On a side note would anyone like a Pizza Roll? I suddenly have a mean urge for Pizza Rolls.

Did you say "Pizza Rolls?"

...[/youtube]

 

[philzibit]

I liked Phantom Menace the least of the prequels, but watching it again in theaters, I had fun.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

I saw the prequels when I was younger when I wasn't into film analysis so I was pretty neutral on them, but god the acting pissed me off even then.

That said, I think Bob is missing the point of the big picture. It's what every series/franchise comes down to.

1. There are people with polarizing opinions who may/may not have severely irrational hatred of the films.
2. There are people with more mild opinions.

People who hate the Star Wars prequels can be either or the two.

I remember when he wrote "It's time to forgive George Lucas." And still hold the same opinion, he doesn't need to be forgiven, he doesn't even need to be apologized to, he doesn't need to hated as a person. We can just dislike his artistic decisions and his revisionism over works that he had less involvement in.

For comparison. It upsets me that Avatar receives universal acclaim for special effects. Don't know if it has a better plot than Phantom Menace, but it certainly angers me as much it did the SW fans at the time of PM's release. But I don't hate David Cameron, he's made some great films (Aliens, both Terminators, etc).

 

[BroJing]

I have to say I was never angry about PM, just truly, deeply disappointed. I saw it in cinema when I was maybe 12 or 13 with my mom having grown up on the VHS releases of the original trilogy and leaving the theatre I can remember thinking...'Why am I not happy?'.

I would be angrier with George Lucas I think but for valentines my fiancee got me the DVD release that included the original cinematic releases for 4-6 so I remain safe from his meddling!

 

[Macgyvercas]

Woah woah woah woah...Hold it! While I definitely agree that PM wasn't the worst film ever, are you seriously saying that it's better than Van Helsing?! Dude! That movie was fucking awesome! I mean, come on, Hugh Jackman has an automatic crossbow for god's sake!

 

[Oskamunda]

Poison...I see what you did there.

Also, thank you very much for putting up that image of SEBASTIAN SHAW as Anakin...YUB NUB!

(Although, I do think it might hurt your argument to just let it go...)

Not related to the video, but can I ask you where you avatar comes from?

I made it from the anime series Maria?Holic...this is Miyamae midstride one of her lesbo fantasies.

 

[Rhatar Khurin]

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

That's hardly impressive though as the lightsaber fighting in all of the films is atrocious. Wahat with the cringe-worthy duel in EPIV and the fight when Palpatine is confronted by Windu being somewhat easy to surpass.