Escape to the Movies: The Phantom Menace 13 Years Later

[00slash00]

i agree that episode one was blown way out of proportion. its not a good movie and i cant see myself paying to watch it, but i dont mind sitting through it if its on tv or something. what i do NOT agree with is his statement that its better than episode 2. i would still pay to see episode 2 because the climax was pretty good and the scenes with obi-wan are really good. heck, id probably prefer episode 2 over return of the jedi

 

[Callate]

Well, yeah, you're right. It isn't that bad. It's not good (and I'd disagree on some of the movies you would compare it to in quality, but that's no surprise), and I'd pretty much agree on the reasons it's not good, but it didn't even make me rage about the hours of my life I'd lost coming out of the theater.

But I think both as an individual movie and with regard to what it meant to the series, the genre, and the fan community, the third movie is the one I'd really single out for disdain. Yeah, "Clones" has tedious and obligatory plot movement and character development that isn't, not to mention some of the most cringe-worthy "romantic" dialogue ever committed to pulp. But "Revenge" is where we really started to recognize that not only were our expectations not going to be met, we weren't even getting something that plausibly integrated with the trilogy of our youth. I'm not even talking about the feelings of nostalgia and innocence and the sheer gee-whiz of space-opera daring-do; I'm talking about things like Leia remembering her mother and the various features and memories the droids inexplicably misplace. It wasn't just bad; it was sloppy in a way that suggested a genuine disrespect for the audience that had made it a multi-billion dollar franchise.

Yeah, I know... time to move on. Maybe in a cruel way we can take a certain pride that we hurt Lucas' feelings enough that the remaining properties might get left in better hands.

 

[simmeh]

So, not really going to touch The Phantom Menace topic but...

Did anyone else catch the reference to The Wheel of Time books?

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

So you're whining about people whining about star wars, and your main arguments is that whining doesn't solve anything? (for the love of god no inception jokes).

 

[Daveman]

I was watching this thinking back to when I liked the Phantom Menace when I was like 7 when it came out... and then I remembered HATING Attack of the Clones and wondered why that didn't get as much slagging off.

Then Bob mentioned it and I was like "Fucking right too!"

 

[bj_waters]

I was a kid when Phantom Menace came out and I really liked it. Sure, I had seen the other Star Wars films, but this was the one I saw on the big screen, which made it cool. I remember it as the only film I went back to see multiple times (something I rarely do). For me, Jar Jar was only mildly annoying and the whole midichlorians things actually made sense to me. I've never understood the all of the fanboy raging, but then I was never a hardcore Star Wars fan that lived off the (relatively) small stream of merchandise and comics through the 80s and 90s. To this day, I still hold Episode 1 as the best of the prequel trilogy.

Now, Mr. Moviebob, I dare you to give the exact same lecture to all the Transformers fans because it's the exact same mess. The movies are NOT worse than the Star Wars prequels and anybody who says so is (mostly likely) guilty of the same things you've just accused Star Wars of in this video. *I'M* sick and tired of all the "BAYFORMERS RUINED MY CHILDHOOD" crap. People want to hate those movies because they didn't live up the expectations that they had held onto over the years. Sure, the movies are obviously flawed, but that doesn't make them the bane of anybody's existence. A toy company wanted to make a popcorn summer blockbuster to propel merchandise sales and they succeeded, and even from that perspective, I can say that I liked the films.

 

[drthmik]

I agree with Bob

 

[ImBigBob]

Thanks, MovieBob. I've been waiting for someone to just tell the Star Wars complainers to shut the hell up about it. I used to be a huge Star Wars fan, I'm not anymore, but rather than rage, I'm just apathetic about the franchise.

 

[Elate]

I preferred episodes I-III. DON'T LYNCH ME. HEAR ME OUT.

I watched them when I was a kid, they possibly had the same effect on original trilogy fanboys that they did on me. They were colourful, action packed, the story wasn't difficult to follow for a young mind and they were fast. (With lots of lasers)

On the other hand, while watching the original trilogy at that age, I found it boring, drawn out, far to much time spent with characters talking to each other about boring things I didn't care about.

So yea. It's all perspective. Just because fanboys didn't enjoy them, doesn't mean they weren't good kids movies.

 

[Flames66]

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

I never really got why people disliked it that much. I enjoyed it at the time and will be going to see it in the local cheap arse cinema when it is re-released here.

I just realised that I was 9 when it first came out.

 

[Rad Party God]

The movie sucked, yeah, that's not news, but I've never been a "hardcore" fan of Star Wars who somehow felt butthurt by this "travesty" of a movie. I'm in the middle between casual and hardcore, I'm not that "passionate" about the movies, but I liked them enough to know a bit of trivia that casuals wouldn't simply know, or certainly wouldn't care to know.

Back in the day, I never wasted my money to watch this on the theater, in fact, I only watched this movie in bits and pieces, at school, when my english teachers brought a bunch of DVDs to "learn english" (ah, those were the days). To put it simply, the movie was pretty "meh" to me, nothing more, nothing less.

And props for pointing out the Red Letter review, I loved Mr. Plinket's reviews, all through The Revenge of the Siths, certainly much better and much entertaining than the movies themselves

 

[jovack22]

Sick of bob hyping 'the avengers'... not saying he's not allowed to like it, but when he's gone and put down so many other good movies, or even ok movies, to be constantly propping it up seems like hypocrisy when the movie is looking very "meh"... bunch of superheroes together -- im sensing an unfocused story with poor character development, but i'll reserve that until i see it

also, the reason the dark knight rises will not do well is because 'the dark knight' was not as good as the original film. i was in denial about it at first too, but it seriously wasnt.

the joker is everyone's favourite character, and they loved the first movie, so everyone expected the dark knight to blow them away. and yes, parts of it were much better, but as a whole it just didnt work.

 

[TheRealGoochman]

Must........disagree.........with MovieBob.......and still........hate episode I...........But can't.

DAMN IT!!!!!

*sigh* you're right MovieBob!

It isn't bad....heck the prequels even paved the way for one of my favorite shows on tv.....Clone Wars.

Good video

 

[portal_cat]

I didn't mind the Phantom Menace movie. I didn't think it was bad. Some part were fun. It was the other two movies that I hated. Especially the so called romance scenes, they were painfully corny. Lucas should have hired a romance writer to come up with less corny dialog than that.

 

[rddj623]

Thank you Bob for being the voice of reason here. Yea the prequel trilogy isn't that great. Yea it underwhelms at every turn. Yea somehow Lucas was able to take great Oscar nominated actors and relegate them to freshmen taking a high school drama class. Non of that matters. If you like them cool, if not cool too. Don't watch them, don't buy them. That's why I only own the original trilogy, cause in all honesty I don't care enough about the prequels to want to add them to my movie collection. But I'm not going to keep allowing my disappointment to fester. It's been a decade, we gotta let it go.

Now the end of LOST...I'm still a bit on about.

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

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.

I tend to agree, even though people get all shocked when I say it. If The Phantom Menace were a book report or something, it would get a C for succeeded at being at what it set out to be, but no more than that (a mindless action flick with black and white morality and lots of wacky things from George Lucas's imagination).

But Revenge of the Sith gets a D or F for not accomplishing what it set out to do, which was to convince us why Anakin became Darth Vader. It tried to be serious and failed badly. The Phantom Menace, on the other hand, was never intended to be serious.

To Bob: thanks for this. And thanks for finally clarifying how you feel about the Plinkett reviews, since every time you mentioned him previously, I got the impression that you didn't like him. But I agree, the videos themselves are very well done and extremely informative, but the people who post them everywhere all the time and say "THIS IS WHY GEORGE LUCAS RUINED MY LIFE!" are annoying as hell.

 

[jack583]

the first star wars movie i saw was phantom menace
i saw in theaters as a kid
it's what got me into star wars
then i saw the origional trilogy
and i couldn't bring myself to like the the one i grew up with
i didn't hate them, i just didn't care

in fact
i don't really like star wars as much as i used to
mostly because of the animated series'
the reason is the vehicals
i know it's not a good reason
more of a nit-pick
but the designs of the ships just seem idiotic
i know it's sci-fi, but i can't see how many of those ships can even get close to flying
the designs are completely impractical

it was more like a toy commercial then a movie series
to me at least

(side note: i like the OT better then the prequils)

 

[Ledan]

*Cough*
I LOVE Phantom Menace. I watched 4,5,6 when i was a child, and episode 1 as well. And I love all of them, pretty much equally. Can't see how episode 1 is worse in any way than the other movies.

 

[NiPah]

I hate to say this, but the one thing that annoys me more then people whining about how bad something is... would be people whining about people whining about how bad something is. I won't start some infinite loop by actually whining about you whining about people whining about Star Wars episode 1, but man...

 

[Leemaster777]

I'm right here with you, Bob. Phantom Menace really does get WAY overblown in how bad it is. In terms of the movie itself, you really nailed everything I think about it. Plus, that was a very interesting look into the fanboy mind, there.

Still not going to see it in theaters, though.