The Definitive Evisceration of The Phantom Menace *NSFW*

cowmix writes "When TPM came out ten years ago, its utter crappiness shocked me to the core and wounded a entire generation of geeks. My inner child had been abused and betrayed. I moped around, talking to no one, for almost two weeks. I couldn't bring myself to see #2 or #3, whatever they were called. Now, a decade later, comes Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review, the ultimate, seven-part, seventy minute analysis of this mother of all train wrecks. Not only does it nail how the film blows, but tells us why. Time, apparently, does not heal all wounds." Or, if you prefer all 7 parts embedded in one page, you can check out slashfilm's aggregation.

Comments

It was impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

To listen to this review for more than two minutes.

I was hoping that the monotonous and almost comically distorted voice-over was somehow a parody, but then it kept going on and on and on...

My advice is to take the hot potato out of your mouth on the next film.

Re:Good Material But Lengthy and Bad Delivery

[badboy_tw2002]

You devoted more time to the review by replying.

That said, the major point was that you _couldn't_ do anything with editing to fix the film. Its broken in so many ways that you'd need to completely rewrite it and reshoot it, without the kid, without Jar Jar, without the gungans, without the trade federation, and probably with a different, older (teenager?) Anakin. And no Qui-gon, which the review also does a good point of showing is useless. Center it around Anakin, or center it around Obi-wan. Make the movie about someone we give a shit about instead of a bland menagerie of characters that are "starwarsy" but not really all that interesting.

Re:Why a decade later

[Domint]

I believe any hopes for a Spaceballs sequel died with John Candy, unfortunately.

Re:Why a decade later

[jitterman]

Its disappointing that Lucas, after all these years, still doesn't understand the basic movie making concept that story is most important.

It's actually incredibly disappointing that, after all these years, Lucas NO LONGER understands these things. Watch "THX1138," "American Graffiti," and to an extent Episode 6. In his early years he used to say emphatically that the effects were absolutely secondary to a good story, and that without the story you couldn't do much worth a darn. He went so far as to point out that in "ANH," the fact that the Empire had significant advantages in technology but lacked a soul and were defeated was an analogy for this concept.

Re:Why a decade later

[bckrispi]

A little perspective, please...

The marriage between films and merchandising didn't exist before Star Wars came out. Star Wars invented the movie tie-in.

Re:Why a decade later

[rsborg]

I don't know about you, but for me the star of the original trilogy was Han Solo. I'm not sure who the star of the prequel trilogy was, but there was not a single Han Solo-esque character in it.

Wasn't that supposed to be Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan? ... Maybe that's because Harrison Ford told Lucas to stuff his lines "George, you can write this shit but you can't make me say it."

Re:midichlorians

[bckrispi]

I think even Lucas realized this mis-step, which is precisely why the midi-whatsits were ignored in the other films.

You weren't paying attention... In RotS, Palpatine tells Anakin that Darth Plagious was so powerful that he could "manipulate the midi-chlorians to create life". This was perhaps the biggest revelation in all six films.

Re:Why a decade later

[dwye]

Please. Pod raing? George Lucas has had an extraordinary career paying homage to everyone else. This time, it was movies like Gran Prix and Le Mans.

It was to the Chariot Race scene in Ben Hur, damn it. It's frigging OBVIOUS. (in the idiom of the review)

Star Trek Generations movie review too!

[antdude]

See here: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=48519614 (29 minutes video) or http://www.videosift.com/video/Why-Star-Trek-Generations-is-the-Stupidest-Movie-Ever-Made (three parts embedded YouTube video). I wonder if he has any more movie reviews.