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Phantom Menace Reviews
m3000 writes "Screening were held in New York yesterday for the Phantom Menace. Already there are reviews circulating on the internet about how they were disappointed by the movie. Was the hype too big or is the movie not that great? " Must-not-read-the-heresy-George-Lucas-is-the-Overmind. Er...sorry. The reviews are basically "all we expected, but not what we hoped for."
slashdotted already?? Couldn't get through....
I wonder about those reviewing the movie. Has anyone else heard about the viewing Lucas had with other directors, including Spielberg, Scorsese (sp?), and Ron Howard. From what I heard, they left the viewing practically drooling! I would probably trust their judgement more than about anyone elses except my own!
I remember this because some newspaper misquoted(sic) Ron Howard as saying that Lucas had some big problems with the picture. Apparently what he really said was Lucas was going to have a big problem trying to cut two minutes from a very good film (apparently Lucas was trying to do this at the time). Ron Howard said that any one of the directors would have loved to have made that film (or something to that effect).
Ack. How annoying can critics get? Remember that archive of articles for the NYT? They called the first one "tacky but fun, great for the kids", then bashed the second and third.
There are very intriguing comments:
(Spoiler-free)
- "Ep.1 is all special effects, but the others were about people and story." Huh? We haven't been watching the same movies. The other movies were about SFX, and they were great because of it. There was a great story, too; but it's not because Ep. 1 is full of SFX that it's not about a story.
- "Jar Jar is comic relief, and us hardcore fans could do without it." Puh-lease. What was C3PO again, if not an annoying comic relief? Don't tell me he had an important part in the story.
Ep. 1 will be a classic ten years down the line, but people will always bitch and moan in the first few months.
Well, it seems almost official. TPM panders to young kids. The most damming evidence is the ever-annoying Jar Jar Binks. Lucas did NOT design this movie for the adult, or for the Star Wars die-hard.
Why would he focus on the kids? I thought I wouldn't have to say this about Lucas, but follow the money. Young kids have parents. Ticketsales = Ticketsales * 2. And he's got a ripe audience for his next movie -- little kids who enjoyed the first and want to see the next.
It's a shame. But I'm sure I'll still enjoy the movie.
The funny thing about reading these reviews is that these people really do seem to have their finger on the pulse of what Star Wars is. More development of Darth Maul [aka: "Evil Bad Guy"]. More goal-oriented action. Action sequences are good. Less annoying creatures. Here's hoping that Lucas reads the same reviews as everyone else.
Here's hoping that he's got the Star Wars machine well-oiled by the release of Episode III.
The only thing we didn't see in the hype to get this movie off the ground was trailers featuring the toys.
Seriously though, when was the last time you anticipated a movie that was "releasing" a line of action figures before the movie itself? This was a pretty bad idea.
As a general rule, if you're anticipating a movie, it's going to disappoint you. And when that movie is the first new addition to a Lucas legacy, it's going to disappoint a whole lot of people. I'm not sure they could've avoided it even if they witheld the toys and didn't keep a running supply of trailers and commercials on their website.
Visually, it was stunning, but we knew that was inevitable. What surprised and disappointed me was the age group the movie seems to have been aimed at. This might as well had had a Disney Logo instead of LucasFilms, it was so sanitized and watered-down.
You know there's a bad guy in it, and you know he's going to fall, but when that fall came, not a single person cheered. No one applauded. With a crowd that applauded the Fox logo and cheered the Lucasfilms logo I would have expected a better reaction when the bad guy was defeated. But we weren't engaged by the film, and there was no emotional response when that moment came.
It's a good film. It's visually stunning. It's certainly fun. But don't bother standing in line to see it. Wait until the lines die down...it won't be long.
I think that a lot of the disappointment about the new movie can be traced back to this. How many people here grew up on the Star Wars movies? A crapload. I did't see SW till ~1981, on a friends' Beta, because I was born in '76. Saw Empire at day camp, after it had just about finished it's theatrical release. Saw Jedi when it came out in '83. Naturally I love 'em all.
;)
I suspect though that relatively few people who were in their 20's or older back in '77 are as big fans as we are (YMMV). Basically it's nostalgia. I mean, they kick ass and all, but a lot of our enthusiasm is due to having been exposed to SW a lot growing up.
Anyhow, although a lot of us have matured, and want to see a more mature SW film (More mature than the Ewok movies, probably less than 'Leia does Alderaan'
*BUT*, although the new movies will be darker and probably cooler, the first one is going to have to be fairly light (otherwise it wouldn't be able to contrast with the later movies). And Lucas is still making movies that will appeal best to kids. We've aged, but the 'intended' audience of the movies has not. If kids who are currently growing up see the new movie, I bet you dollars to donuts they'll be as hooked as we are. We just have to remember our inner lil' geek and we'll love 'em too.
I am _SO_ there on the 19th. And that weekend. And maybe a couple other times....
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
If you go in there expecting the second coming then obviously you are going to be disappointed.
Lucas can never measure up to fifteen+ years of expectations in a two hour film! Just take it for what it is.
I'm hoping that it is a good addition to the originals, from what I am hearing in those reviews it is. Since most people have built up expectations of this movie you will inevitably have them judging it against those expectations.
Admittedly I had no expectations of the Matrix and I thoroughly enjoyed it, I'm hoping to go and see the movie with people that aren't so hyped up that they are about to explode, because I know that those are the people that are going to be disappointed.
Empty your mind of preconceptions and see this movie.
This always happens with any big movie. The people who were totally, mindlessly enamoured of it see it first one way or another, then are disappointed because they didn't have constant orgasms while watching it, or the messiah didn't appear in an usher's uniform to seat them. They then proceed to tell everyone in the known world it was disappointing.
Gee, I wonder why...
Bottom line is, if you expect nothing going into a movie, you'll never be disappointed. We've all known that critics are just bull*$#%ters anyways (Leonard Maltin gave _Laserblast_ 3 1/2 stars for chrissake), so why would people who saw the movie and happen to post them on the Net have any more validity as to our own personal opinions of a movie than theirs?
He now has more positive reviews. Cheez, of course there are going to be people dissapointed with the film, we're all different ! Don't depend on someone else's opinion and form your own.
Go see the movie !
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George Lucas is not what I would call a particularly dumb person. I don't think many people would, even given the EWOKS.
I have little doubt this movie was shot in many different modes -- dark, light, in-between. And, as the saying goes, a movie is really made in the editing room. Lucas has had many years to seriously consider who he wanted the prequel to appeal to and he probably could have chosen whether "noir" or "political intrigue" or "cheesy kiddie flick" ended up on the cutting room floor. So, he chose "cheesy kiddie flick" and us old-timers will have to live with it.
I'm not necessarily lauding Lucas' move, but he does have a business to run and he's invested what surely amounts to a whole ton of money into Episode I. He could have made a movie for "us" but would he have had the same return on his investment? I doubt it. Personally, I'll probably see it at least twice in the theater, but, unless I had kids, I wouldn't invest seriously in the merchandise. In total, my investment into Episode I will probably run about $100, including 2 or 3 screenings and later purchasing a video or DVD; kids, on the other hand, will probably represent at least a few hundred bucks just in toys alone.
So in general, I don't honestly think us Star Wars "boomers" (yep, I saw it '77) would invest the same amount of cash into the movie as we will for our kids, even if we went to the theater and saw it 5 or 6 times. A small fraction of us has enough desposable income to just trash it all on the collectable stuff (those are always the die-hard collectors anyway). Perhaps it says something about our society when we kow-tow to our kids this way, but this is generally the reality of our consumer culture.
Lucas is in his 50s. The guy will *certainly* never go broke and it is highly improbable that his "Empire" would ever be anything less than seriously important in the film industry, even if Episode I had never come out, but he does have the next 20-25 years of running Lucasfilm to think about. There's no doubt we would have made his film a success at the box office if he had tailored it for us, but he has longer-term issues to consider than a few weeks (or months? or years?) of fan frenzy. After all, what is he going to do after the prequels are done?
I think George will come around the next 2 episodes -- again, in a decidedly calculated fashion. "Empire" was the best of the bunch anyway so we're likely headed for a fuller story line, plots, and characterization. The eye candy is great but wears thin. It'll need more substance if Lucas has any hope of us pulling out a copy of the movie in 5 years to just watch it for the fun of it (which I still do with IV and V -- ROTJ still stinks in my book).
I tend to go against what critics say. If the critics absolutely adore a movie, I probably won't like it, because the movie will be too fake, trying to appease the critics and the marketing division, but not the end customer.
If they say its so-so, then I'll probably think its a wonderful movie. I question some critic's ability to look beyond the screen to see the art form that is being presented to them.
Now, the most important thing to remember here is that the average critic was disappointed when the Empire Strikes Back came out, as they were with starwars. However, when Jedi came out, and people were lining up a week in advance to see it, that tends to debunk the critic's ability to properly assess the public's response to a movie.
I think that critics look for the more superficial qualities. Is there adaquate environmental propganda in the movie? Is there a firm, yet subtle message about saving the whales? In the end, does everyone just learn to get along with each other?
Hell, as far as I'm concerned, I'm GLAD the critics didn't like it. That means there's just that many people I'm not going to have to fight to get a ticket on opening night.
When Star Wars was released, it was revolutionary, and did not conform to the generic way that movies were produced at the time. Some people couldn't immediately embrace that and mis-took that to believe that the movie wasn't so great, when in fact, the public had been starving for it all along.
In the end, only one thing matters. Do *I* like it. If I do, then I'm perfectly happy. And I'm sure that The Phantom Meanace will have a long theatre life and people will go back and see it again and again and again and it will win most of the academy awards and those same critics six months from now when TPM is still showing on half the screens in every theatre, they will release new critiques, this time telling the world how great it was, completely oblivious to their original assessment.
You'll see.
And when the sequel comes, they'll just be disappointed again.
-Restil
restil@alignment.net
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