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

Why a decade later

[sopssa]

It probably took 10 years to do all of this.

I didn't think The Phantom Menace was all that bad then, but now he's pointed out all the flaws in humorous manner.

Re:Why a decade later

[Philip K Dickhead]

Time wounds all heels.

Re:Why a decade later

[jellomizer]

The Phantom Menace could have been fixed by 3 things...

Older Skywalker (Lets get him in his late teens)
No JarJar and/or no C3PO and R2D2 (way to many comedy characters)
No Pod-Racing... 20 minutes about 1/3 of the movie about nothing.

Re:Why a decade later

[jgtg32a]

I think JarJar could have been cool if he wasn't a complete klutz and was able to fight with capoeira, he could have kept his annoying traits and been a badass, and then everyone would have just thought well he's an alien.

Re:Why a decade later

[gnick]

Those three points violate rule #1 of sci-fi action for kids - Marketability outweighs quality.

Older Skywalker (Lets get him in his late teens)

Younger kids identify more and are responsible (indirectly) for many more toy sales.

No JarJar and/or no C3PO and R2D2 (way to many comedy characters)

Action figures.

No Pod-Racing... 20 minutes about 1/3 of the movie about nothing.

Video games.

Re:Why a decade later

[Talderas]

God damnit Crichton. Aeryn let you out again?

Re:Why a decade later

[mobby_6kl]

Q: So what is it that you do here?

A: Merchandising!

Re:Why a decade later

[Rary]

I think the one thing it needed that would've made it a thousand times better would be a single likeable character.

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.

Re:Why a decade later

[Ben Newman]

The comparing of the opening shots of The Phantom Menace and A New Hope was a great piece of film design analysis. The scene of the blockade runner getting blasted by the star destroyer set up everything; there was a conflict going on, the rebels were weak and ill equipped and the empire was big, scary and not afraid to use force. The Jedis approaching the trade federation ships in The Phantom Menace told you nothing about either side, and that sort of weakly defined sense of design pervades the entire movie. The battle droids were never intimidating, they looked like they were designed purely to stand around waiting to be light-sabered in half. I mean storm troopers were a joke in an actual fight but at least they looked bad assed. Darth Maul had some scary design going on but he was out doing his own thing. Vader not only looked like a bad guy but he was also the fist on the long arm of the empire which added to his menace. Epic fantasy (yes, Star Wars has more in common with the Lord of the Rings then 2001) needs its clearly defined villains and heros, and some trade dispute is just not the right kind of conflict for this kind of movie.

Re:Why a decade later

[altoz]

Really? Just those three things? Let me point out why the movie really sucked.

In IV - VI, we find the story of a character who's very evil who finds redemption. We also find out that he used to be good.

That should have been the heart of the story. Why and how did Darth Vader become so evil? How did he get seduced to the dark side? The films hand-waved through the most important question that everyone had. He thought his wife was going to die and started killing children or something.

The flaws weren't that there were too many characters. The flaw was that there just wasn't a coherant story.

Re:Why a decade later

[Gilmoure]

Damn nerds are taking over Slashdot.

Re:Why a decade later

[Megahard]

Here is a better review.

Re:Why a decade later

[PopeRatzo]

I think JarJar could have been cool if he wasn't a complete klutz and was able to fight with capoeira

And if he wore tight shorts and had big boobs.

Yes, if JarJar had only been a little more like Lara Croft,. it might not have been so bad.

Re:Why a decade later

[fermion]

In Star Wars, the book, we learn, or at least it is much more fully alluded to, that Luke is a much more accomplished driver. One of the problems with Star wars is that this is not established, yet Luke magically knows how to fly a fighter. Admitadly there are differences between two and three dimension navigation, but at least we would have some experience.

In the phantom menace, most things could have solved by making Anikin a little older. I think some of the pod-racing was good, as it established the family as skilled in the trade. Developmentally putting a kid that young into a pod racer just seemed too fake, so the establishment seemed forced.

It is arguable that R2D2 had some knowledge of Anikin and the kids, as well as where Obi was hiding. This allowed him to deliver the message from Princess Leia. It seemed to be quite silly to have CP3O built by Anikin, and did go too far on the comic relief. The urge was likely to have some overlap between the movies, but this as a plot device failed.

An overall critic of the critics. I think many fans did not like the world painted by the second trilogy. It seemed too different. I found it was the one think that world. The empire of Anikin was the high point of civilization about to fall apart, but still visually perfect. The world of Luke was broken, not in the over the top manner of Road Warrior, but in a very natural manner where things are simply old and not much creation is going on.

Re:Why a decade later

[Darinbob]

Have to have C3PO and R2D2. That was the original concept way back when Star Wars was just a single movie with no thoughts of it being a trilogy or more. A huge galactic conflict seen through the eyes of the two droids. A theme borrowed from The Hidden Fortress that is a major influence on Lucas, where the viewpoint from two peasants drives the movie. When it was a trilogy and Lucas had grand ideas about a series of 9 movies, Lucas said he wanted the droids to be the common thread between them all.

As is was The Phantom Menace seems heavily designed to be a marketing vehicle. This is quite the opposite of the original Star Wars (not going to call it A New Hope as that was never the original title). No one knew Star Wars was going to be a hit, it was just going to be a stand alone story, an homage to older space operas. The major merchandise tie ins to movies didn't exist. The concept of a blockbuster didn't exist either. It succeeds on its own merits.

Flash forward to The Phantom Menace. Merchandising is now a huge concern. So are demographics; like many lousy movies, you either start with a kids movie and sneak in some adult jokes, or you start with a more mature movie and stick some bratty kid in to attract the kids to the theaters too (it's a sci-fi movie with explosions, the kids should have been a built-in audience without the brat). Then you toss in a comedy character so the kids keep watching and don't start whining that it's too long. The big problem with The Phantom Menace is that it was created with a formula. That may work for a Syfy movie of the week, but not a major theatrical release when your professional reputation is already starting to slip.

Re:Why a decade later

[zenjah]

We didn't need a cute kid, an annoying clown, and an extended fictional sporting event to convince us to buy a gazillion toys based on the original movies. When Lucas made movies as a young man he made them to suit his own tastes. And as a kid, I liked them far more than any show that was written specifically for children. How did the original trilogy capture the attention of so many kids, and sell so much merchandise, without Jar Jar?

Re:Why a decade later

[jitterman]

The first movies didn't suck like the last three, and Luke was in his late teens/very early 20's, yet *they* were incredibly successful from a marketing/toy/etc. perspective.

Re:Why a decade later

[calmofthestorm]

I thought Episode III was good for precisely this reason: it's about a good person who turns evil for the right reasons. I and II I agree were just...eh. It's actually my favorite episode of the whole series, possibly second to the empire strikes back.

In all honesty though, all six of the Star Wars episodes (not to mention the extended mythos) is tacky science fiction with aliens being guys with masks on and a very black-and-white simplistic morality, and I chalk up most of the hate I-III get to when-I-was-your-age-movies-were-good nostalgia. That said, i didn't like them either;)

Re:Why a decade later

[Zalbik]

No Pod-Racing... 20 minutes about 1/3 of the movie about nothing.

Video games.

Ahhh...that's why there are no video games based on any of the other star wars movies...lack of pod racing!

Re:Why a decade later

[bill_mcgonigle]

and a very black-and-white simplistic morality,

Stormtroopers wore white and Jedi Luke Skywalker wore black. ;)

Re:Why a decade later

[truthsearch]

God willing we'll all meet again in Spaceballs II: The Search For More Money

Re:Why a decade later

[LordArgon]

I think you're totally on the right track, although I would disagree that there wasn't a coherent story. It just sucked and wasn't entirely believable.

The key, IMO, is that Anakin was a whiny bitch. Darth Vader was anything BUT a whiny bitch. Given how much I loved 4-6, I expected to see a noble character who was gradually, tragically led to the dark side. Instead, we see an emo prima donna who whines about everything. How did this guy become the most dignified and feared person in the galaxy? It just doesn't add up.

At the end of of the prequels, I wasn't mourning the loss of Anakin Skywalker; I was just glad that whiny kid was going to finally STFU.

Re:Why a decade later

[Joe Tie.]

Younger kids identify more and are responsible (indirectly) for many more toy sales.

I'm not sure who said it first, but I think there's a lot of truth in the statement that no kid wants to be robin, they all want to be batman. As a kid, I recall always hating the "kid character". I never identified with him. Or, if I did, that was a bad thing. I didn't watch transformers, for example, to understanding of the young male viewpoint in a world with giant robots. I just wanted to be a giant robot who could shoot lazers. Or be a part of gi joe, not the dumbass kids they saved.

Re:Why a decade later

[Idiomatick]

I thought it was 'Spaceballs III: The Search for Spaceballs II'. Honestly though I think we'll have to wait another 10 years, then it'll be a classic remake/reimagining rather than a real sequel... I think there is some kind of rule on how long has passed since the last movie before you can't have sequels (star wars doesn't count).

Re:Why a decade later

[optimus2861]

Keep in mind that every star wars movie was a kids movie. Kids were the target audience.

No, they weren't. You don't have Han Solo shooting Greedo first in a kids movie. You don't have Darth Vader torturing Han Solo and cutting off Luke's hand in a kids movie, or Lando betraying Han. I don't even think you have the Rebels getting their asses kicked from one end of Empire to the other in a kids movie.

The original trilogy were all-ages movies. The kids could enjoy them, the adults could enjoy them, and they (until Return) didn't insult anybody's intelligence.

This "they were only ever kids movies" is pure Lucas bullshit intended to paper over just how bad the prequels really are.

Re:Why a decade later

[Domint]

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

Re:Why a decade later

[Stupid McStupidson]

I disagree, TPM could have been fixed by ONE thing. Lawrence Kasdan.

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

[jitterman]

You're correct of course, but the deeper question is, did you really care? Was it convincing to you as a viewer? I know Lucas didn't achieve those things for me. I was neither motivated to sympathize with Anakin's character as presented in the films, nor was I moved by his turn to evil. Bad writing + bad acting = bad viewer experience, no matter what the character's stated or revealed motivation.

Re:Why a decade later

[jitterman]

No one can describe QGJ without using his character's profession or wardrobe as descriptors... The other one was Queen Amidala.

The question I pose to you is, even if you are more capable than the people he interviewed to come up with descriptors, do you honestly feel the characters in the more recently-produced films are as strong or stronger than those in the originals films? If so, all you and I can do is agree to disagree on that point (and honestly, it's just film, so I'm not up in arms about that - just sayin' I think the newer characters do lack in development and depth).

Also, what's with the editing? It looks like he added his voice to video-from-still images and then edited them for time...

That was all done on purpose - he was going for a "feel" to his work. I'm not going to try to explain it, but there are certainly people who "get" what he did and why. I've talked to them and we had a good laugh over it. Just trust me, it wasn't an accident.

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

[MightyMartian]

Because it had cool space ships, guys dueling with swords made out of light, and the coolest looking damn villain ever put on the silver screen.

Re:Why a decade later

[gnick]

Can you name *one* video game featuring young Anakin or Jar Jar that was a success? I can't, but I can think of several original games that were both commercial successes *and* generally regarded as good games.

Here. Now it wasn't the best game in the world, but it sold like mad - A nice parallel to the movie. The original (Ep 4) movie, I don't believe factored marketing in much, although that certainly changed by Jedi. The difference between those movies and Ep 1 are that they lost sight of ANY obligation to put out a decent product and focused solely on marketing. Thus, we get a crappy movie, long-time fans are pissed, and Target moves a gazillion Jar-Jars. By Ep 2, I think that they realized that their approach was flawed.

I howled when Colbert told Lucas that he owned every Star Wars movie and asked him if he did too. Lucas replied, "All except episode 1".

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:Why a decade later

[JamesTRexx]

Damn nerds are taking over Slashdot.

I vote this best comment of 2009! :-)

Re:Why a decade later

[bckrispi]

There was also the cut scene that was reinserted into the Special Edition where, prior to the Battle of Yavin, Red Leader expresses concern about Luke's ability to fly in combat. Biggs comes to Luke's defense telling Red Leader that Luke is the "best pilot in the outer rim".

Re:Why a decade later

[Rary]

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?

I think Lucas wanted Obi-Wan to be that character, but the problem is that the Jedi are just not likable. They're all completely wooden and walk around like they have sticks up their ass. The prequels needed a rebel, and simply casting a cool actor to play a stuffy Jedi role doesn't magically turn that stuffy Jedi into a rebel.

Realistically, the one who had the most potential to become the cool likable character was Qui-Gon. So Lucas did nothing to flesh out the character, and killed him off in the first movie. Brilliant.

Re:Why a decade later

[bckrispi]

Yup. Revenge of the Sith was definitely a kids movie. What with Anakin murdering a temple full of children before going all "domestic violence" on his pregnant wife, followed by him having three limbs lopped off and being burned alive.

Re:Why a decade later

[Rary]

Anakin went from whiny kid to arrogant teen to Darth Vader, and sucked at two of those roles.

Only two of them? Which one didn't he suck at?

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)

Re:Why a decade later

[Cytotoxic]

I'll add this: In the first five minutes of Star Wars, Vader walks into the carnage of battle, picks a captured soldier up by the neck, holds him dangling in midair at arm's length and questions him before offhandedly snapping his neck with one hand and tossing the body aside. Bad guy established in less than 2 minutes. While it is cheezy sci-fi schlock, it is also effective storytelling. You knew right off the bat that Darth Vader was an evil badass that you didn't want to get involved with.

Darth Maul gets introduced half way through the movie and despite the cool makeup we have to be told that he is a bad guy. Also, despite being a much better stunt man and athlete and having much cooler fight choreography, Maul never reaches the level that Vader does in that introductory scene. Therefore his defeat is no more intriguing than getting past the chompy things on the assembly line. He's not a character, he's just another obstacle for our hero to jump over.

Re:Why a decade later

[gnick]

Yeah - The late 1970's Star Wars video game market was HUGE!!!

My favorite one was where there was a blaster-charge bouncing back and forth between two light sabers that you could move up and down using paddles.

Re:Why a decade later

[stillnotelf]

So you mean...if Jar Jar had been Jugg Jugg?

Re:Why a decade later

[Maxo-Texas]

Jar Jar was one of the best *characters* in the movie. He was the only one anyone really cared about and he was the only one who created any genuine character interaction (i.e. "Stop!", various looks of exasperation).

Without Jar Jar, the movie would have been even more dry and antiseptic than it was.

As our evil reviewer points out, most of the characters in this movie were boring and worse, indescribable as people.

Jarjar... clumsy, dumb, good with animals, lucky, irritating, friendly, brave, (you could go on a bit more)

It was sad to see so many human actors upstaged by an animation.

Re:Why a decade later

[mhajicek]

Pod racing makes for a video game without weapons or violence, which makes for a boring and forgettable game.

Re:Why a decade later

[MightyMartian]

I don't think he pulled anything off. Even with retarded dialog Alec Guinness was a kick-ass Obiwan, and even Mark Hammel, not exactly a thespian of any great note, could produce a character who is the legitimate hero of the first trilogy. Christiansen is wooden, having two faces; adolescent intense gaze and adolescent bitching. Like I said, he's a Breakfast Club reject.

Demo Reel

[bsDaemon]

I thought it was awesome at first, because it seemed to just be a demo reel for SGI and Alias|WaveFront. Then I realized that it was a "real" movie, and that it was supposed to be Star Wars... then I realized how bad it was. Apparently so did the rest of the world, and they seem to have taken it out on SGI. Poor SGI... it wasn't their fault!

Re:Demo Reel

[MightyMartian]

The real problem is that George Lucas wrote it. As a generic sort of idea man, Lucas is great, but the more involved he is in the film, the worse it gets. The reason The Empire Strikes Back is probably the best of the bunch is because Lucas was at his most distant from the whole process.

Frankly, the prequels were a letdown. Episode III is clearly the best, but that's pretty relative. It still sucks a lot more than even the most dismal of the original trilogy; Episode VI, but compared to TPM and Attack of the Clones (I mean, that really is a retarded name), it's a brilliant film.

Lucas seems to have a hard time building any kind of dramatic tension. In place of a decent script and dialogue, he puts in ever more insanely huge spectacles. In Episode III, for instance, instead of a battle between Anakin and Obiwan around a lava crater (as was originally expounded in the book for Episode IV, Lucas, who seems incapable of writing the kind of chilling dialogue that would go on between a former master and pupil and friend, replaces it with a WHOLE MOLTEN PLANET. I mean, it's eyecandy to be sure, but every time I watch those scenes, I feel like I was robbed of what could have been an extraordinarily dramatic moment.

TPM lacks any kind of useful dramatic device. It holds the worst aspects of Lucas's filmmaking, with little or nothing of some of the better aspects of the franchise.

Re:Demo Reel

[Grishnakh]

I was so digusted with Ep. 2 that I never did get around to watching Ep. 3.

But you're exactly right. Lucas should have stuck with just coming up with ideas and visuals of these alien worlds and ships, and that's it, and left the storywriting to people who are actually talented at that. That's why ESB was so great: it was written by a professional sci-fi author, not Lucas. Any time Lucas writes dialog, it's beyond terrible. But his ego is so huge that he refuses to admit it, and insists on doing it himself.

Re:Demo Reel

[girlintraining]

Apparently so did the rest of the world, and they seem to have taken it out on SGI. Poor SGI... it wasn't their fault!

SGI didn't fall from glory because of a three-coiled Lucas-branded turd. It failed because it made repeated strategic mistakes in the market. When 3D hit the desktop, they sat there watching people build clusters out of gaming consoles and making boards out of commodity components -- management was convinced it wasn't a threat. Then they made several attempts to change platforms to various Intel chips, and released Linux workstations. People didn't take them seriously after that (Yes, I am saying on slashdot that using Linux was a strategic mistake). They were nearly dead, delisted from the NYC, shareholders demanding they fold -- when they finally reversed course, hired a crisis team, and assessed the damage. But it was too late -- the economy didn't allow for a recovery, and the vulnerable shell of SGI was bought out, and its brand identity assumed by a company specializing in rackmount servers.

SGI died because management lost focus, got complacent, and fried like an egg in a frying pan in the recession. Besides, Hollywood was never SGI's main market -- it was the government and scientific institutions. For every CG animation you see, there's ten weather modeling simulations, and other massively-parallel graphic-intensive processes.

Re:Demo Reel

[MightyMartian]

Episode V had some great dialogue. The Yoda sequences gave us all the mystic mumbo jumbo of Episode IV, but with more Zen-like conviction and less being pure corny. The fight between Vader and Luke, and the ultimate revelation of Vader's identity was a moment of extraordinary drama that surely stands as one of the great moments in cinema history.

The whole film has a kind of tension to it that none of the other films had. It was a character driven film. The special effects don't play as a big a role. You'll note a lot of the action in this film takes place in claustrophobic places; ice tunnels on Hoth, Bespin interiors, Star Destroyer interiors, Dagobah (which is so murky it might as well be a closed interior), the interior of the worm creature/asteroid. This means the camera is concentrating less on eyecandy and more on the characters, and requires a lot more dialogue and interaction between characters.

Re:Demo Reel

[ascii]

I may receive flack for this but Lucas' is *horrible* at writing dialogue. Try to count the number of times he has used the line "I have a bad feeling about this" throught the Star Wars movies and you'll get to jesus kabillion in no time.

What's more - the only variance with these lines is where to put the intonation. Here's a quick rundown on Lucas' options when writing dialogue:
1. *I* have a bad feeling about this
2. I *HAVE* a bad feeling about this
3. I have *A* bad feeling about this
4. I have a *BAD* feeling about this
5. I have a bad *FEELING* about this
6. I have a bad feeling *ABOUT* this
7. I have a bad feeling about *THIS*

That is all.

Re:Demo Reel

[BobMcD]

The real problem is that George Lucas wrote it. As a generic sort of idea man, Lucas is great, but the more involved he is in the film, the worse it gets. The reason The Empire Strikes Back is probably the best of the bunch is because Lucas was at his most distant from the whole process.

You may not know how right you are. According to the Secret History of Star Wars, not only was much of the story borrowed directly from other material, but he got extensive help from Hollywood friends to make it into a workable movie. Also that book makes the excellent point that Empire and Jedi really only rehash the original movie in more depth. Which can't exactly be that hard, when you look at it that way. Read that book, if you get the chance. It puts this Definitive Evisceration in perspective.

Anyway if he skipped both the borrowing steps and the getting help from others step the result probably should be a rather unimpressive ball of crap.

Re:Demo Reel

[Fjandr]

I heard William Shatner in my head saying these lines as I read them. You sir, are an insensitive clod!

Re:Demo Reel

[bennomatic]

And if Keanu Reeves had been in the flicks, the options would have instead been:

1. Woah.
2. Woah?
3. Woah!
4. Woah...

Re:Demo Reel

[TheRaven64]

Ignoring Linux was not a problem for SGI, but ignoring commodity hardware was. When a few of their engineers said 'we could make something almost as good as our high-end stuff, sell it for a tenth of the price to everyone with a PC' they said no. Those engineers went on to found nVidia. Even if they hadn't, someone else (ATi, Intel, Matrox, 3dfx, S3, whoever) would have done. They could have been the company that owned the consumer 3D market. They didn't want to create that market because they thought it would demolish their high-end market. They didn't seem to realise that it would whether they were in the new market or not. It's a lesson that lots of businesses miss. The record labels could have owned a vastly profitable download market if they'd started offering it back in the early '90s before most people had enough bandwidth or disk space for it to be useful. Instead, they decided that downloads would hurt CD sales (which they do) and thought that not offering them would prevent this (it didn't).

If that's what it means to be a geek...

[RedK]

Seriously, if a Movie wounded your inner child and destroyed your hopes and dreams, you had a very sad life. Most normal Star Wars fan just didn't watch the movie again and that's it. Personally, it was the 3rd movie that turned me off completely. Anakin's turn to the darkside felt so rushed and didn't seem to work with the character at all (one minute he's a goodie 2 shoes that's going to turn Sidius in, 30 seconds later he's bowing to his new master... wtf ?).

Re:If that's what it means to be a geek...

[Again]

Seriously, if a Movie wounded your inner child and destroyed your hopes and dreams, you had a very sad life. Most normal Star Wars fan just didn't watch the movie again and that's it. Personally, it was the 3rd movie that turned me off completely. Anakin's turn to the darkside felt so rushed and didn't seem to work with the character at all (one minute he's a goodie 2 shoes that's going to turn Sidius in, 30 seconds later he's bowing to his new master... wtf ?).

Do not underestimate the power of the Dark Side.

Re:If that's what it means to be a geek...

[Doctor_Jest]

WELL put! Although I wasn't as put off as you on the 3rd movie (I enjoyed it a bit better than ATOC), I echo the sentiment. I think the pacing problem was Lucas' inability to show sufficient time passing in the movie... don't know why.

The prequels were for kids, no doubt about it. And all these whiners who are talking about how Lucas raped their childhood (and so on) are forgetting one important thing... they were KIDS when they saw the first trilogy. The only problem with the 2nd set of movies is that after the first Trilogy, everyone and his sister tried to re-capture the model Lucas used to achieve blockbuster status. There have been DECADES of also-rans, improvements, and the entire hollywood system has morphed into the "blockbuster channel" (with some Oscar stuff thrown in like sprinkles on a sundae). Before A New Hope there wasn't much in the way of epic Space Opera storytelling (the storyline was pretty standard and had been done to death in books before and in movies/games/books since), now with the likes of Terminator, Alien, etc. we have been accustomed to the epic blockbuster sci-fi movie. The new Trilogy from Lucas did not open in the same atmosphere as ANH did.

I for one enjoyed the movies for what they were... another trip into the Star Wars universe. I didn't expect Shakespeare, nor did I expect Oscar quality acting (let's face it, Mark Hamill was a whiny bitch in the first movies...) I just wanted a fun ride with awesome effects that let us know how it all started. Was it perfect? Far from it. But then again, if we are honest with ourselves, neither was the first Trilogy.

Different Audience

[ATestR]

Sure, TPM was lame when compared to the original Star Wars trilogy, but it was never meant to please the audience of the original films. Its primary target was the little kids... progeny of the original audience. Agreed, Lucas could have achieved this with a film of the caliber of the originals, but I suspect that at that point he didn't really care to go to the effort.

Re:Different Audience

[larry bagina]

if Lucas had the budget and technology to make the films he wanted, they probably would have been a lot worse.

Re:Different Audience

[Captain Fallout]

Sure, TPM was lame when compared to the original Star Wars trilogy, but it was never meant to please the audience of the original films. Its primary target was the little kids... progeny of the original audience.

That point is addressed in one of the later clips. If this movie is made for little kids, then why make it so complicated in regards to trade disputes, political arguments in the galactic senate and the machinations of someone trying to take power.

Re:Different Audience

[Anonymous Coward]

Star Wars was for children because it was about a teenage hero who teamed up with a mysterious old wizard and a swarthy space pirate to rescue a princess, battle an evil knight dressed in black armor, and destroy the Death Star.

TPM was for children because it was about galactic teamsters strike negotiations, interspersed with with CSPAN footage of a senate sub-committee debate on interplanetary tariffs. If the Jedi don't foil Senator Palpatine's evil plan in time, he will be elected to a Senate sub-committee chair! The video game probably expands on this theme by including lots of exciting amendments and cloture votes, because kids love that stuff.

Re:Different Audience

[Anarchduke]

That is very true. Take the movie Jaws. The whole reason the first movie had so much suspense was that the animatronic shark wasn't working right, so they had to shoot the movie without it. If it had worked, then we would have gotten a much worse movie. The limitations forced Jaws to become clever in an attempt to scare people, and it worked.

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:It was impossible

[ucblockhead]

Yes, I am sure that it isn't all meant to be funny, and he also really does have a hooker tied up in his basement.

Han shot first!

[burtosis]

IMHO the decline into craptacularism and lowered expectations started with the re-release of an otherwise good film.

Jar^2

[TBoon]

Jar Jar wouldn't have been so bad, if he had gotten way less screen time. Sure he's a "breakthrough in technology"...hmmm... actually that seems to summarize everything wrong with that movie... It's there because it's possible (and/or have never been done before), not because the story needs it to be there...

Re:Jar^2

[Quiet_Desperation]

Meh... the character was just too much of a jackass, and the voice was grating and incomprehensible at best. A more Arthur Dent-like character would have worked- someone just flat out lost but doing his best to deal with cosmic events way over his head. Like when Dent locks up the ship's computer trying to make tea. It was a disaster, but stemming from an honest mistake.

It's actually a pity ...

[tonk]

... that after Return of the Jedi, no more Star Wars movies were ever made.

Re:It's actually a pity ...

[jlmale0]

Funny, but you really needed the link: http://xkcd.com/566/

Box Office

[Dan East]

Of course this doesn't directly correlate to the "crappiness" of the movie, but Phantom Menace did just shy of $1 billion in worldwide sales, and it is currently the #10 top grossing movie of all time (placing just below LOTR-TTT). It was the #2 top grossing film of all time until the first Harry Potter movie came out in 2001.

Regardless of the hype, or the previous success of a franchise, a movie cannot be so popular without being liked or enjoyable to at least a very significant portion of the population. That seems to go against TFA's opening line of "Chances are you probably didn’t like Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace."

Could Episode 1 have been better? Absolutely, in so many ways. But it was an incontrovertible success on many levels too. For me personally, various aspects of the movie was too childish (for starters).

I was more disappointed by Return of the Jedi

[bunuel]

I think Return of the Jedi was a more disappointing movie. The change in tone in this from Empire was more drastic than the change between this and the prequels.

Re:Good Material But Lengthy and Bad Delivery

[Jethro]

Yeah, that's what I came here to say. Guy makes some good points (that, face it, aren't new) but tries way too hard to be funny. That 'voice' was way too annoying.

The Definitive Evisceration of The Phantom Menace

[Entropy98]

I've been waiting almost 10 years for The Definitive Evisceration of The Phantom Menace and I must say that now that it's here I'm very disappointed.

My inner child has been abused and betrayed. Im going to mope around, talking to no one, for the next two weeks. I don't think I'll be able to bring myself to see #2 or #3, whatever they will be called.

There were so many good points to be made, but it seems the director just went for the easy, mass appeal, fluff. Maybe if the director wasn't surrounded with mindless 'yes men' with no vision this could have been better. Maybe if they had cast a narrator with a better voice. Unfortunately this 70 minute train wreck cannot be undone.

I hope I don't have to wait 10 years for the The Definitive Evisceration of The Definitive Evisceration of The Phantom Menace.

Phantom storytelling

[Bill_s16]

I remember after seeing Episode One: The Phantom Menace thinking "I know it was bad but I don't feel like expending too many cycles analyzing why"? The myriad answers here. And in the process of deconstructing dismanting the film, conveyed as well is a good basic lesson in storytelling/scriptwriting. My own Star Wars orbit began to decay with Return of the Jedi. Besides the accursed Ewoks, I came away with the distinct impression that Lucas didn't actually rescreen or review his previous films for the-story-up-to-now before scribbling the script for the next one. At the End of "Empires" Yoda states: "There is another." Leia, I'd guessed. Made sense. But I never found out who for sure...

Great Example of IP Abuse

[grumpygrodyguy]

I haven't seen it, but I'm glad someone devoted the time to do this.

The prequels, and especially the replacement of the original trilogy with the "re-mastered" Lucas-edited crap are great examples of how destructive exclusive IP can be to creative works.

"The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell."

That is what George Lucas became to his own films. After a great piece of artwork has become culturally accepted, it should be cast in stone, and be preserved as it is.

Re:SWHS?

[Brett Buck]

It was terrible, but it wasn't even the worst Christmas special that year! That distinction goes to Shields and Yarnell at Disneyworld. Mimes, for God's sake!

      Brett

Re:Good Material But Lengthy and Bad Delivery

[badboy_tw2002]

Seriously. The review itself has more character development, plot, intrigue, etc than TPM itself. Thought I found the ST: Generations review to be a lot funnier, esp. the parts that show the shortcuts and incongruities with the series.

Every film is flawed

[Enderandrew]

Read Mr. Cranky and he will make the greatest film on the planet sound terrible. Every film is flawed.

The prequels on the whole failed to live up to lofty expectations. But they aren't terrible on a Batman and Robin scale either.

Episode 1 ultimately fails due to a poorly written script. Not just in dialogue, but also in structure. A tentpole blockbuster film comes down to a series of meetings followed by a series of meetings. Lucas forget screenwriting 101 - show, don't tell. That being said, the saber duels in Episode 1 are the best of the series. The pod race sequence is pretty decent. The movie also invented 8.1 channel sound, didn't it?

I don't understand the massive vitrol aimed at films that ultimately aren't half as terrible as people would like us to believe. The same person who wrote this probably sat through Transformers 2 without having an aneurysm. Really, which film was worse?

Re:Good Material But Lengthy and Bad Delivery

[furby076]

Lucas gambled and he lost. He lost everything.

This is where I have to disagree. He went on to make 2 more movies, and their associated toys, video games, books, etc. He went on to make a stupid amount of money. While the person who created this entire thread said he didn't see the last two movies (and I doubt this very much) most people, even the ones who complained about TPM, did. We went to the theatres, we saw the movies, and cheered during the movie. After the movie we became the typical fanboys who tried to equate the last three movies to something from our childhood.

Right there that is the equivelant of what I did to myself by watching Transformers cartoon (the original cartoon) when I was 30 years old. I f'd up my memory. Back when I was 8 y/o Transformers was top notch graphics...now it is like reading a comic book - except not drawn as well. Same thing with these movies; we are trying to compare what our childhood memories (fantasies) represent and compare it to this -- it ain't going to fly.

Anyhow - many of us have gone to see movies for their graphics and not their stories (avatar anyone)

Jar Jar redeemed himself

[benchbri]

I'd just like to point out that Jar Jar -alone- allowed the creation of the Galactic Empire.

Re:I beg to differ

[kungfugleek]

Remember, remember the 17th November,
The Holiday Special and plot,
I see no reason
The Star Wars Life Day treason
Should ever be forgot.

Agreed...

[schon]

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...

I'd like to hear what he had to say, but I just couldn't stand listening to that voice.. it sounded like he was trying to do an impression of Joe Lieberman doing an impression of Jar Jar's leader.

Re:Good Material But Lengthy and Bad Delivery

[eldavojohn]

How about you watch the whole thing and then start your diatribe?

I thought I made it pretty clear that if you want me to watch an hour and ten minute critique of a two hour and thirteen minute movie, you had better do a better job than what I saw in the first ten minutes. Nothing groundbreaking was presented to me in the first ten minutes and on top of that I was getting pretty annoyed with the guy's intonation. All I'm saying is that it's not my cup of tea. If you found something worthy of note in part whatever that you think is brilliant, let's hear it.

But who is he and what has he done to contribute to modern cinema? He sure speaks like everyone's a fucking moron for not seeing all the problems with The Phantom Menace. Yet I could have presented films where the exact techniques he criticizes actually work. He himself shows some of these movies, why did it work in the Usual Suspects but not The Phantom Menace to leave the enemy confusingly hidden the whole time? "Because TPM is for kids" does not suffice. If I give you seventy minutes of my life, I expect a comprehensive analysis. I stand by my statements and will not devote any more time to this review.

We all know Lucas is no stranger to screwing with his old work. Maybe now, a decade later, he'll hack apart something that should be hacked apart and rework TPM to have a five minute pod racing scene, no Jar Jar Binks and a whole lot more interesting development? I think there are some good things in TPM but the bad things just overshadow anything worth watching.

Re:Good Material But Lengthy and Bad Delivery

[foo fighter]

One important caveat that this review overlooks is that many of his criticisms center on complexities and different approaches that Lucas took (before that he wanted to take different approaches when he asked Lynch to direct RotJ).

I don't know what this sentence is supposed to mean, exactly.

Just because Lucas screwed it up doesn't make these things bad.

Well, yes it does. The Phantom Menace is bad because Lucas screwed up. And the critic does explicitly address the fact that it is not just Lucas's fault, but the fault of the editors, producers, screenwriters, and everyone else who were sycophants instead of creative partners willing to say no and challenge Lucas when he screwed up.

Lucas gambled and he lost. He lost everything.

Lucas didn't gamble anything. And he sure as frak hasn't "lost everything". He's still in the top 25 of Forbes Celebrity 100. He pulled in $170 million last year and has an estimated net worth of around $3 billion (that's three-fraking-BILLION-with-a-"B").

In software development, you generally start with the basics and master them before you begin an epic endeavor into parts unknown.

How did this vacuous comment make it to +5?

Re:Good Material But Lengthy and Bad Delivery

[rhyder128k]

"So from watching the first part, the guy raises some good points."

This is Slashdot and it's unreasonable of people to criticise you for not watching the TFV. They're obviously still on web 1.0 and obsessed with not reading TFA without extending standard /. protocols to FVs.

I'm on part 3 and it seems to be going the same way as TPM. It started well with a good pace and a plot that expounds some interesting details. Shame as he was onto something pretty good at the beginning but by the middle of part 3 I kept saying, "Well, I can't really agree with that". For example, it doesn't seem implausible, in story terms, that a corrupt trade regulation body would be carrying out an embargo for self serving reasons.

It's a shame that he couldn't have taken his own advice and edited out some of his crappier ideas.

Yeah, I was disappointed that Ep1 was a kids movie too. Most adults who grew up with the original trilogy were. But it could have been much worse and it does expand the SW universe with some interesting new details.

Anyway. Onwards...

Re:Lucas made the best film Lucas could make

[Grishnakh]

People keep saying this, and I really don't agree. The prequels could have been good movies (not necessarily great, but at least good, on par with the originals which were also not great), had Lucas simply relinquished the script-writing and directorial duties to some talented people. With a movie with that kind of budget, it shouldn't have been hard to find some good writers and a director to take these roles. Lucas could have instead stuck with being "creative director" or somesuch, and come up with ideas and drawings for aliens and ships and such, which is what he's actually good at. Instead, Lucas with his giant ego insisted on doing it all himself, and it came out as a steaming pile of shit.

If he had done this, we'd have had some decent movies at least, and while some people would certainly have complained, it wouldn't be anywhere near what we see now with just about everyone over the age of 13 saying these movies suck ass.

I barely remember the movie...

[wandazulu]

...but I remember the hype and feelings of expectation my friends and I had about it. We paid full price for "Meet Joe Black" just to see the TPM trailer, then left immediately afterward. There were a lot of other people doing the same thing, to the point everyone was laughing and the ushers were promising the trailer would run again after the movie if everyone stayed.

After we left, we went to have dinner and talked endlessly, dissecting every second of the trailer at length, imagining what the plot would be, how they would eventually get to "New Hope", and then after dinner we went to an arcade and played video games.

I don't care a whit about the actual movie, but for me it'll always be about that evening with friends in New York and how much fun we had in total geek mode. Sadly, I can't say I've had a repeat of that experience since. So for that evening alone, I'll still say thanks to Lucas for making the movie in the first place. But, yeah, the movie itself sucked.

Re:Don't look now

[Virak]

I've seen all the films as an adult, never had any of the toys, and I still like them and you are still a trolling asshat.

I am still waiting

[MemoryDragon]

For the Jar Jar Binks christmas special.

Re:Did she mention Stupid?

[Minwee]

A lot of these characters are STUPID, but I don't think that's a good enough description for a redeeming movie.

That was actually the point of the movie. It's all about the downfall of the Republic, characterized by Queen Amidala's ineffectual term as Senator, and the decadence of the Jedi Order, demonstrated by how even "renegade" Qui Gon Jinn tells Obi Wan to let The Force guide him. When Qui Gon said "There's always a bigger fish" he didnt mean "It sure was lucky that a bigger fish came by", he actually means it. Throughout the entire trilogy all of the Jedi blindly stumble around hoping that The Force will do their thinking for them, and without the Sith to oppose them that approach had worked pretty well for them for a long time.

So the characters in the prequel trilogy weren't mind numbingly stupid because of sloppy writing, it was all part of a larger plan to --

Oh, forget it. I can't keep this up with a straight face. If Lucas had really explored any of those ideas in the films then he could have had something interesting. Instead all we got was a bunch of muppets.

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.

midichlorians

[DoofusOfDeath]

A big problem for my enjoyment was the midichlorians, the microbes that supposedly give a person control over the Force.

By making the Force scientifically explicable rather than mystical/magical, it changed the feeling of the story for me.

Re:midichlorians

[JDHannan]

I've always wondered why more people can't subscribe to the notion that midichlorians don't cause the Force, they're drawn to the force.  Like if someone had control over magnetism, you'd expect to find lots of iron on him... that doesn't mean that that iron caused the magnetism

Re:midichlorians

[BobMcD]

I've always wondered why more people can't subscribe to the notion that midichlorians don't cause the Force, they're drawn to the force. Like if someone had control over magnetism, you'd expect to find lots of iron on him... that doesn't mean that that iron caused the magnetism

Because that's simply a mechanism put there by your brain to help you maintain your sanity. You're making that up because it helps you feel better.

What the Beardo actually said in the movie was:

Anakin: “Master, Sir... I heard Yoda talking about midi-chlorians. I’ve been wondering: What are midi-chlorians?”
Qui-Gon Jinn: “Midi-chlorians are a microscopic life form that resides within all living cells”.
Anakin: “They live inside me?”
Qui-Gon Jinn: “Inside your cells, yes. And we are symbionts with them.”
Anakin: “Symbionts?”
Qui-Gon Jinn: “Life forms living together for mutual advantage. Without midi-chlorians, life could not exist and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to us, telling us the will of the Force. When you learn to quiet your mind, you’ll hear them speaking to you.”

Maybe he's just delusional. There's little mention of this feature of the Force ever again. Perhaps he's uploading his test results to the Jedi temple, they're rolling their eyes, and playing along, but it doesn't really mean anything. Again, however, this goes outside the material provided and makes assumptions. Beardo certainly believes in a causal relationship, and we're never given any story reason to doubt him.

Ergo, bad plot element.

Re:midichlorians

[lenester]

It's like the way everyone driving a BMW is a fucking dickwad. It's not that the car causes people to become dickwads, it's that in most circumstances only dickwads would drive one in the first place.

Re:midichlorians

[jitterman]

Ergo, bad plot element.

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

Further, it's a shame that on at least one more occasion (R2 having booster rockets is one example) Lucas introduced something that had no later historical reality (in the scope of his fictional universe).

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:midichlorians

[ross.w]

Your example is not quite right. In "The Black fleet Crisis" trilogy R2D2 uses them to maneouvre in the Vagabond ship in the absence of any gravity.

So am I normal or something?

[Quiet_Desperation]

I moped around, talking to no one, for almost two weeks.

Really? I mean... really?

I left the theater, commented to my friends that Lucas had lost the formula somewhere along the way, and got on with life. I rented the next two. End of story.

Re:Why a video

[Darinbob]

Who's going to watch a video review, much less a 70 minute one? Write it up on a web page with some illustrative clips.

I'm not sure why there's this trend to having high bandwidth video for stuff that the simple written word can handle. The Apple site comes to mind with the "Learn Your Way Around the Mac in Minutes" videos, that would take only seconds if it were text. Some of us still remember how to read.

Re:TL;DW

[Minwee]

So if we take out the "Anakin crap", we are left with a young Obi Wan, a half built C3PO, and Jar Jar.

You're left with Qui Gon and Obi Wan beating up a bunch of droids with light sabres, then some blurry stuff where we just can't seem to pay attention, then Qui Gon and Obi Wan beating up Darth Maul with light sabres. Then the credits roll, and nobody even remembered the Lost Orb of Phantastacoria.

I've seen worse movies.

Han Solo is so sexy.

[Jessified]

I like how all the men describe Han Solo as sexist and chauvinist and so on, and the girl thinks he's "sexy." I bet she's a feminist.

Oblig

[masmullin]

I find your lack of faith... disturbing!

Merchandising doesn't require bad child actors

[sjbe]

Those three points violate rule #1 of sci-fi action for kids - Marketability outweighs quality.

Marketability is made much easier by having a good product.

Older Skywalker (Lets get him in his late teens)

Younger kids identify more and are responsible (indirectly) for many more toy sales.

I've got a box full of the original Star Wars action figures that says the age of the kid has little to do with marketability. Furthermore, none of the other Star Wars movies featured a child so prominently and somehow they still managed to sell a galactic ass-load of merchandise.

No JarJar and/or no C3PO and R2D2 (way to many comedy characters)

Action figures.

See previous response.

No Pod-Racing... 20 minutes about 1/3 of the movie about nothing.

Video games.

You don't need pod racing to do a video game. Even if you do want to make it a video game you don't need 25 minutes of it where the plot advances nowhere and we have bad dialog and worse acting by the kid playing Anakin. They could have shown pod racing in about 2-5 minutes and you'd have your video game AND a better movie.

Re:Merchandising doesn't require bad child actors

[Anonymous Coward]

You're response is too intelligent to deserve a response. (and likely beyond the abilities of most movie executives to understand)

Good news, everyone!

[everynerd]

Good news, everyone! Dr. Zoidberg is now reviewing 20th century cinema.

Re:Good news, everyone!

[z0idberg]

Hooray!

Because it is funny and entertaining

[sjbe]

Who's going to watch a video review, much less a 70 minute one? Write it up on a web page with some illustrative clips.

I did. It's actually funny as hell as well as pretty insightful. If you actually watch it you'd understand that there are some points that are a LOT easier to make with a video. It also has more impact when you see Darth Lucas himself actually saying things that matter in the context of the argument about why the movie sucks.

I'm not sure why there's this trend to having high bandwidth video for stuff that the simple written word can handle.

Because there are some things that video can do that text can't and vice-versa. Sure it can be misused but that isn't an argument against the format.

Re:Because it is funny and entertaining

[NoOneInParticular]

I did watch the video review (all 70 minutes of it), thought it was funny as hell, and still agree with the grandparent complaining about it. A video is a very poor way of transmitting information. I need to remember from rote all that this guy said in the video, as there is no way in hell that I would ever revisit this video to find some choice words. Were it written down, I might do that. As it is know, it's a nice consumable, but hasn't been archived. The information content is most likely lost.

You don't like them because they aren't for you

[rgviza]

My kid loved all three prequels. Given the target audience, that makes them a success. Maybe people don't like the prequels because they are grownups now. /shrug

All I know is my dad thought the first 3 were crap. Probably because he was a grownup. Us kids loved them.

I think everyone is pissed at Lucas because they feel abandoned. You don't like them because they were never meant to be liked by you. You like the old ones because you were a kid when you first saw them. I have no problem turning on my sense of wonder and suspension of disbelief. I loved all 6 star wars movies and the animated series'.

Get over it, they are tween movies, a space soap opera meant for kids, like Buck Rogers. You need to look at them from that perspective. Then again I'm totally into Sponge-bob and iCarly too. I step down to my son's level and watch the stuff with him. When I'm there, I love it. I don't like serious movies or tv shows. I'd rather watch Toy Story than Seven.

I'm not sure how you can take a set of movies called "Star Wars" seriously to begin with. Adults expecting something more is like expecting High School Musical or Hannah Montana to be as satisfying as Gone With the Wind.

Analyzing every detail and character takes all the fun out of it. It's like critiquing the latest McDonalds happy meal and talking about how it doesn't measure up to what a meal at a 5 star French restaurant should be.

The whole subject of Lucas "ruining" Star Wars is decidedly stupid. Move on, grow up, and let it go, or enjoy the movies for what they are: movies for kids.

Good reviews of Star Trek too.

[biglig2]

His reviews of Generations and Insurrection are good too: besides the obvious flaws in the plots of both, he knows the TV series well enough to find the non-obvious continuity flaws. Intercutting the plot of Insurrection with footage of Picard chewing Wesley a new one for doing exactly (and I mean EXACTLY) the things that Picard does in the film is exquisite.

Re:Don't look now

[schon]

All of the films sucked.

Sorry, but no.

My wife was 27 when I met her in the 1990s. Although she was a huge movie fan, she hated science-fiction, and hadn't seen the Star Wars movies at all. It took some convincing, but she finally agreed to watch them with me. We rented "Star Wars", and watched it together. She liked it so much that she insisted we go rent the other two the same day.

Detach yourself, and watch any of the films with a critical eye. They are all awful.

Done, and it turns out you're completely wrong.

Ewan McDonald?

[Trogre]

I stopped watching at this point. I'm amazed I made it that far, actually.

Re:SWHS?

[Enderandrew]

My wife had never seen Wrath of Khan before. Last night we rectified that. I was honestly worried that she wouldn't sit through the film, because of the pacing. Wrath of Khan is a slow developing character piece wrapped in the trappings of sci-fi blockbuster.

I really wonder if a film like that can be made today with a sizable budget.

The latest Harry Potter was editted pretty tight, rushed, and they felt the need to add an extra attack sequence that wasn't in the books. The best parts were the scenes in between because the principle actors have such good chemistry with each other at this point. But I fear Hollywood would never allow a major film to hinge on such moments.

As for the glory days of sci-fi, I find it sad that Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers are far more famous than The Twilight Zone. Not everything that came before was all that great. But as you said, when you only had a few stations, no cable, no internet, you took what you can get.

You would think in era of ten million choices, competition would make everything better. Yet cat videos and stupid memes gather more attention that quality entertainment. I don't get it at all.

Eh, we had the older skywalker

[SmallFurryCreature]

He was a whiny teen. Luke Skywalker just accepts his fate. In an ACTION movie, that is important. Leave the shallow soul searching for MTV. The problem with the movie is that Darth Vader it truly and wholy evil. The "saving" at the end of Return of the Jedi was already bad enough (in the books and expanded universe it is made clear that he can't cross over nearly as easy, hence the reason to burn the corpse where Yoda and Obi-wan just faded away) but it still doesn't sit well with the hero ending of the bad guy being blown away, but is excused because it is different enough to be seen as original.

But he AIN'T a hero character. And in the first three movies you are supposed to care about this guy who really is not going to end up saving the day. It would be like making a movie about Adolf Hitler's youth and expecting people to root for him. Sorry, no. And there was a remote possibility that we could have cared, if we had seen him fighting the dark side only to be tricked fatally in the end in a way nobody could forsee. But the entire 3 movies are like a Punch and Judy show, with the audience screaming "look out behind you" and punch looking the wrong way and saying "where". Hilarious when 4 year olds see it done in a good puppet show, but the political antics were beyond young kids and below adults. Where were those supersmart jedi, were was the mastermind of the emperor. No action hero to save the day, no intense manipulation by unseen puppeteer masters who turn wheels within wheels. Just... well just the 3 prequels which told a story that could have been told in a simple expanded universe book in a way that would not have focussed on the villain but on a new hero whose path crosses that of the villain.

There is a reason this guy takes 70 minutes to tear the movie down, because the prequels are really that fucking bad. Not the kinda bad that you get when a producer gets his hand on something he doesn't understand (Uwe Boll) or the producer just can't direct (Plan 9 from outer space) but the kinda bad that arrives when a lot of very talented people forget just what the fuck they are good at doing.

The simplest example of this is the CGI battle on the grassy plane. What did CGI do well in those days? Tech scenes, hard corners, steel and concrete. So what did they render, lush grass land. It looks fake! They managed to get a green lawn which you can shoot for real on any golfcourse looks horribly fake.

And if you think 20 minutes is 1/3 of the movie, then your brain must have carefully restructured itself to shut out the most damaging memories, memories that if they were to surface would turn you into a bliddering murderous psycho.

Proof, you think the movie could be fixed. Amazing healing capacities the brain has. I can remember it all, but I am sane! Ain't I Mr. Fibble?

Actually, it has the trinity

[SmallFurryCreature]

All good stories have MULTIPLE characters, to appeal to our different tastes.

The hero is Luke, he is the guy you know you should wannabe like. He is the guy your sister knows she should want to date.

Han Solo is the guy you want to be, and the one your sister/mother REALLY liked. You can see that in part 1 of the review, the guys describe Han as a wannabe womanizer. The girl describes him as a succesful ladiesman. He can jump her hyperdrive anytime.

And Leia, Leia is the girl you wanted or the one your sister wanted to be.

While Obi-wan guides them until they are old enough to stand on their own feet. It is classic stuff. Kirk/Spock/McCoy. The Fellowship of the Ring. It works, because one person can't appeal to the entire audience or even one person.

But in the end, it is Luke in Star Wars who is the real hero, we just like to pretend he isn't because we want to be cool. But in the end, it is Luke whose struggle we follow. Luke who we see grow up from anxious teen farmboy to Jedi Knight who confronts the emperor and his past.

And that, as this review points out best in part 6, is missing. We don't care. Characters are not making sense and fights are about acrobatics.

I totally agree with the reviewer when he states that if you thought the prequels were okay because of the fights, then you don't get it. The slow fight between darth vader and obi-wan was never about swords-play. This is NOT a swashbuckler movie. And that was missing. The prequels are a Jackie-Chan movie. Very nice moves, but that is all there is. Early Jacky Chan movies don't even have an epilogue, they cut to credits the moment the boss bites the dusts.

At the time you had a lot of kiddies wowing about Darth Maul, but who or what was he. He was no Darth Vader. Rather amusingly, George Lucas is quoted in the review as saying that CGI is nothing compared to story telling. Boy did George forget that lesson.

What the review is wrong about is focussing on the story plotholes. The original got tons of them too, perhaps even more, but it don't matter because the core is solid. The CGI and even the story don't need to be good if their is a heart beating in the middle of it all. And that is ultimately what the prequels lack. There is no soul.

Eh...

[SmallFurryCreature]

That is called a running gag. It is SUPPOSED to be like that. What next, you cleverly going to remark how Kojak writers sucked because they could never get the lead to eat anything else then a lollypop?

That Columbo was bad because no real cop would always were the same trenchcoat?

Talk about missing the point. If the point was the center of the galaxy, then you would be on the planet farthest from it.

Did you like them?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Because my mother sure liked the originals herself.

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.

Re:Don't look now

[roc97007]

Um, no. I was 21 when I saw Star Wars in 1977. I saw it six times. I don't even remember if there were Star Wars toys in 1977. I remember my roommate made his own lightsaber with an old flashlight, a colored lens, and a lucite curtain rod.

What amazed me about the film was that the pulp science fiction I had grown up with could finally be realized on the big screen. Turns out that largely didn't happen, but that's another story. There finally existed a film that could show what I had to imagine up to then.

That's where my fond memories lie. Not some seven-year-old childlike wonder. I saw Star Wars as an adult, liked it as an adult, and then saw The Phantom Menace as an adult, and hated it as an adult. I think this "childlike wonder" argument is hogwash.

There's another thing we have to understand here -- 1977 turned around a decade-long downer trend in science fiction films. It seemed like there was an ironclad industry rule that scifi films had to have a black or at least frustrating ending. Star Wars, for all it's flaws, turned that around, and allowed you to leave the theater feeling good instead of wretched. Now, perhaps we've gone too far the other way, but at the time, it was what the audience needed.

Star Wars worked in spite of it's flaws. The Phantom Menace was merely an exercise in "more is not better".

Midichlorines turn magic into biology.

[Fantastic Lad]

I find it interesting that in a Star Trek film, Midichlorines (sp?) would have been not only accepted, but expected. Magic isn't allowed to exist in Star Trek.

In Star Wars, however, Magic is the rule. It's not allowed to be understood or reduced into a discrete and measurable phenomenon. It has to remain romantic and awe-inspiring.

Cross the line, (in either the Trek or Wars story universe), and it is taken as a grave offense. I was annoyed by it as much as anybody. But I do have to stop and ask, "Why?" In fact, I find this little feature of our culture enormously tremendously interesting. -Technology geeks are perfectly happy with magic; they want it, are enraptured by it, but only when it is safely contained and labeled within the fiction box. Outside that box, it is immediately despised and attacked even at the mere suggestion that it might have some bearing on our real world. Yes, this is a bit of an axe grinding, but nonetheless, it remains a point of un-answered curiosity for me.

Real magic makes many people severely uncomfortable to consider in our day to day lives. The concept of midichlorines, given the general despising of all things unscientific among the tech-geek crowd, should have been applauded by all those who hate the notion of religion or spirituality, etc. And yet, this is obviously not the case.

It is particularly interesting to me that 'real' magic is by no means actual magic, (as I understand it), but rather a collection of rule-driven forces we simply haven't managed to categorize yet. Wanting the concept of the Force to remain in the realm of the purely mysterious makes me think that something else is at play in the collective psyche of the engineer/Sci-Fi geek.

-Just an observation I have kicking around in my head with no formal answer yet.

-FL