The Phamtom Menace Revisited

I didn't have to do that with Star Wars IV and V or VI

 

That's Because...........

YOU ARE PART OF THE REBEL ALLIANCE....AND A TRAITOR!

MODS..TAKE HIM AWAY!

 

Should have just choked that mofo; lol anyway

 

It never bothered me to begin with actually. The only thing that bothered me was the Darth Maul was such a great bad guy, it was a shame that he was only there for one movie. I absolutely love the scene where he has just killed Qui-Gon and is just staring at Obi-Wan, pacing back and forth with a "you're next" look on his face. Lucas should have found a way to get him into at least the next movie, imo.

I also remember them being longer than they probably needed to be. Part of that was probably due to Lucas feeling the need to make an epic movie and thus...an epic movie length. The pod race, I thought, was pretty damned cool at the time and obviously the special effects were top notch for the time being.

But lets face it, the original Star Wars trilogy, especially when it first came out, just struck a chord with people. It was next to impossible for Lucas to live up to the hype that was involved around the new Star Wars movies. I still love the last one of the new trilogy. Obi-Wan decimating Anakin with a heavy heart and leaving him for dead was a great scene and makes you sympathize with his decision to become Darth Vader.

Which ultimately...makes you hate him les upon viewing the original trilogy and ruins the tender moment of sorts at the end of the saga.

But I digress.

 

I remember I didn't hate the movie like most did when I first saw it, I just thought it was a huge missed opportunity (the same can be said about the other 2 movies in the series as well).

My main problem, besides the obvious Jar Jar stuff and the long Pod race, with the movie is I feel like they wasted the Darth Maul character, he was the coolest looking character outside of Darth Vader and they killed him off too quickly in my opinion. They could have done a lot more with that character and instead we got a regular old bad guy in Count Doku (spelling?). I would have liked to see him survive the Obi Wan/Qui-Gon fight and had the feud with Obi carry on into the next film to give us a killer Yoda/Anakin/Obi vs. Maul/Count light saber battle at the end of the movie with Obi finally killing Maul.

I think the reason why Qui-Gon learning how to commute with the living Jedi's was overlooked was because Lucas couldn't get Niesen to film parts in Ep 2 and 3 like they originally wanted to, if my memory is correct.

I think the big reason why it gets looked at in a bad light is because although it does have some good parts in it like the bond with Qui-Gon and Obi, overall the movie just isn't very good and it doesn't hold up well. Like I said these 3 movies are just huge missed opportunities in my eyes as Lucas clearly didn't have an idea of what he wanted to do with the story and it showed, eventhough he claimed to always have the backstory stuff in his head.

 

Nice post, I agree completely. Ep 1-3 completely changes the way you look at the original series and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

 

Again I'm going on memory here so I could be wrong but Lucas originally planned to have Star Wars (episode 4) aired as a Saturday morning TV series, he never had solid plans to turn this into multiple movies. It was only after it was a huge hit that it was decided he'd make more. There were never plans for it to even be a triology or even a standalone movie at the time of first filming.

 

The hype was there because of how beloved those first movies were; it was because of their inherent quality, not a media creation.

All he had to do was craft the last three with the same care and quality of story that he did first two, and most of the third.

I thought he always had the story in three parts, although I could be wrong about that. But yes, during the making of the first he made it as good as he could and got the most out of it because he really didn't know if he could get any others made if the first flopped at the box office.

 

That's the problem, Lucas is a horrible horrible writer. He's a great visionary, but his dialog is notoriously bad. Harrison Ford famously said, "you can write this stuff but you can't say it!"

From what I've read, Star Wars was a standalone movie, but he saw it as part of a larger story. But at the time, that larger story was undeveloped. After the success of it, only then did he develop a back story and a forwards story.

Empire Strikes Back was originally titled Ep II. Only after the back story was significantly developed did he change it to Ep V (after realizing how deep it was going to be).

 

I think episode 1 and 2 maybe should have been in the same movie, and he should have taken more time with the anakin/vader transformation in part 3. I didnt see enough of evil Annie before he was disfigured to completely associate him with darth vader, to me they almost seem like two different people. They should have had some more exploits of him doing evil stuff, while still human looking, slowly making him colder, more calculated, and more and more emotionally detatched as he did his evil deeds. Then he can fight and lose to obi wan and lose his human looking appearance. But thats just my opinion.

 

Agree; I think that while a lot of storytelling effort was expended on crap like the race, not nearly enough was invested in fleshing out important character developments.

For instance, the romance between Amidala and Anakin was made to seem improbable by the abruptness with which it was portrayed and the short shrift it got.

Another area in which Lucas fell far short was in not allowing Anakin's transformation to be more organic within the story.

In short order, he went from the dutiful apprentice to being pitifully duped by Palpatin.

With Luke, we got to explore over the first two films his struggle with the duality of his (our) nature; the process was given space to unfold naturally, as it would in real life. In large part that became a reason for the success of the first series, and that even carried the trilogy satisfactorily to its conclusion even through the excesses and shortcomings of Return of the Jedi.

With Anakin, Lucas cheated grievously - and in favor of what? More Jar-Jar Binks and that goddamn chariot race.

To cap his many sins, Lucas then took all of the mysticism and sense of possibility of accomplishment from the first trilogy and sucked it dry by making the strength of the force nothing more than how many of a certain bacteria each person had in their blood.

So all of the camaraderie, the closeness of the first films, generated by the belief that everyone could walk the "right" path and struggle to achieve righteousness was smashed to bits - you either had the bacteria, or you didn't.

The whole thing just seemed ill-conceived and poorly-executed, which is a tragedy for us, because of the promise of the first three films and what should have been.

 

The Empire Strikes back wasn't a standalone movie. It is my favorite. Such a great story.

The characters in the prequels are all bland. I could stand the fact that the movie does not make any sense and has a lot of very stupid plot devices that are so far away from what a normal person would do, however they are there to advance the story, if the characters were awesome.

Also the first movie does not really have a main character.

I didn't hate the movie when I first watched it. I was very disappointed. It is a movie that I have grown to hate more and more each year. Especially when I realized that I could of had the safe effect if they just explained what happened in the beginning of a movie and I would have lost nothing.

Why does a trade federation have an army, sign treaties or block trades? Why do they need the war to be legal?

 

Not only that, in just a few scenes before it, he murders a bunch of people, including women and children.

 

And aside from an expression of mild disgust, she ends up being fine with it!

The mass murder is another thing that was mishandled; it could have been a powerful final scene to depict Anakin's complete corruption, and instead it's just one more stepping stone along the way.

It just illustrates how out of touch Lucas was during the whole process; anyone with any sense would know that, and also know that a large part of the appeal of the whole story would be damaged by the midichlorian thing.

 

In A New Hope, Obi Wan tells Luke that Vader betrayed and murdered his father, and helped the empire hunt down and kill all the remaining Jedi. I thought that would be something that might have taken a while to do. But from what was depicted in Episode 3, it appeared to happen in a matter of seconds as he swings his lightsaber at a bunch of defenseless children. It really takes away from the assumed "adventure" that I envisioned of Vader traveling the galaxy and hunting down his former allies and killing them. Thinking that would take some kind of talent to be one against all. All he did was beat up on kids. Come on Lucas, wtf is that?

 

I agree about that scene, it was quickly pushed aside and there was barely any emotion to it.

I always thought that the scene in which Anakin sees his mother was killed and goes for revenge would have worked better if the Emperor was the one behind the murders and made it look like the Tusken Raiders were the ones that did it to help set up Anakin's slow path to the dark side. It would have made a lot more sense if that did happen that way.

 

The scene itself should have been more brutal, no holds barred. After all, in the first film we see a whole planet destroyed, so we know that the scope of the evil in the empire is terrible and vast.

And that scene should have been the very last scene before the final battle with Obi-Wan.

 

I could actually make sense of the first movie if qui-gon turned out to be sith.

 

Oh I agree. It was a MAJOR scene for the franchise, only they didn't treat it like it was. The movie was PG-13, they should have really pushed the envelope for that scene along with the final battle with Obi-Wan.

 

That would have been a nice little twist. It would have been the prequel's 'Darth Vader turns out to be Luke's father' type moment as the prequel's needed something more to them.

 

Exactly.

The scene should have been terrible enough to inspire revulsion, so that we'd go into that last battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan rooting solidly for Obi-Wan, not feeling ambivalent.

Anakin should have gone into that battle fully transformed into Vader, with only the injuries remaining to make him the guy we hated so in the first and second films.

 

The whole first trio was just "how much crap can we pack into this thing to make people go OOOH, AAAAH and throw us wads of cash." I enjoyed it when it first came out, but each time I see them they just worse and worse and worse.

 

Must.
Leave.
Thread.

 

The three prequels did have some strengths such as Darth Maul. As Samphin said that character needed more time than it got as it was just too cool to kill off so quick.

Qui-gon was enigmatic and interesting. Of course he was with Liam Neeson then conversely the two actors that played Anakin were horrid.

There was some good foreshadowing for Vader in his loss of family and the emperor using the dark sides necromantic potential to sway him. And yet it lacked a symmetry seemingly leap frogging too and fro.

Lucas should have gotten some better help with the writing.

There ares still stories to be told. Vader's years before Luke comes of age. What happened after the emperors death etc. I just hope if the franchise continues Lucas learned from his mistakes and they get good writers and directors for it.

 

The thing you have to realize is if you breakdown the Star Wars mythology, it is real heavy handed political and philosophical stuff that is being told through allegories. Alot of audience members are not going to pick up on that, and Lucas Im sure felt pressure to keep alot of that subliminal instead of forthcoming. Also with the violent scenes, the emotional impact they are suppost to have, Im sure were deduced to being in the background of the story, as a result of the pressures being induced from the major studio execs whom Lucas has to sell in order to get distribution. Lucas has alot of say in his films, especially using LucasArts as his legal vehicle to assume alot of creative control in his own projects. But at the end of the day, the corporate studio execs were going to analyze every aspect of the movie to make sure it is family friendly, since Star Wars has had such a huge impact on pop culture, there was a need to reduce the powerful emotions of the story. Imagine what would happen if they did do what alot of us would've liked to seen. The outrage on making Star Wars "too serious and violent" for family audiences would've been worse publicity than us adults charging that they've kidified Stars Wars to the point where the prequels could've been bigger than what they were. Watching the entire Star Wars set as Im an adult now and understand the world alot better than I did when I was 12 and young Star Wars fan, I now understand the story alot better. And watching the prequels especially, you can tell they rushed through the important aspects of the story for the sake of more camera time for Jar Jar Binks, ect. I honestly think some of this was done against Lucas's wishes(like making Jar Jar a more essential character in the second movie, and its obvious Lucas pushed back on this in the third by moving him out of the storyline.), but what the heck he was going to make a killing either way. Also, the making of Anakin Skywalker from Jedi Student in the story to teenage hearthrob faking emotions in the movies, especially Revenge of the Sith, was pretty comical.I do think Lucas did a good job with Qui-Gon and Obi-Won, however.

With that said, I always enjoyed watching the prequels despite their obvious faults. It doesn't prevent me from watching it and from what I can say is a very good story that could've been presented from a more powerful and emotional tone that what it was. Whether Lucas's fault or not, though, the prequels really ignited the notion that Lucas just cares about cashing in on his old movies.

 

Disney's Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace...

I don't get how the Jedi, masters of justice throughout the universe are cool with slavery. "Sorry kid, we know you won your freedom but we couldn't free your mom; she has no skills"

Also, I get all the hate for Jar Jar but in general, what was the point of the Gungans anyway?

 

Just makes me wonder why Anakin didn't spend some of his hard earned money as a Jedai or pull some strings to at least get his mom out of slavery for the 13 or so years he was training.

 

I disagree with your main point. Qui-gon is a moron. He makes some of the dumbest decisions ever. He is also quite bland.

I do not agree about he jedi order losing its grip. I see the jedi order not making any sense. In fact if you watch the movie and try to make sense out of it, you wonder why anyone did anything. Why did the Trade Federation try to kill the Jedies? When having them alive and sending them home would have done exactly what they wanted. Why did they pump in gas that they could see? Why did they open the door to shoot them with lasers when they are already in a room they cannot get out with that has gas?

Then you go into the second movie and wonder why can't a senator date?

 

I agree after re watching the ewok adventure and ewoks the battle for endor, they are great films that add to the entire star wars saga.

 

First Paragraph: Well sensing something is wrong and then taking some tea from a robot. Splitting up to go in different ships down to the planet doubling the chances they are caught and he does not know if the two ships will be thousands of miles apart. He also only uses his weird jedi mind trick powers when it is best for the plot. Then taking Jar Jar with him when he wanted to be inconspicuous. He is a moron and makes a lot of just stupid decisions that no smart person let alone jedi would make.

Second Paragraph: You have to make that up. There is no clue what exactly is going on. They give vague references to something happening. This would have been a good chance to explain Count Dookoo, however you spell his name, however we have no idea who this guy is, except for someone saying he was a jedi. Seems like the only way they could become relevant was for the Sith to return so the Jedi have someone to fight. So Qui-gon's plan is to get all the jedi killed so there is balance to the force. Smart guy.

Third Paragraph: Sideous wanted the senate to know what was going on. That was the basis of his entire plan. The Trade Federation could have just told the Jedi their position and send them on their way. His plan would have worked still.

It is a movie that the more I think about it, the more I hate it. When I first watched it the only parts that bothered me was the fact that Jacob Lloyd was a HORRIBLE actor. HORRIBLE. He could show emotions well, however giving a regular line he was just crappy. And the fact he said, "Ooops" when he blew up the shied generator that was so effective it couldn't stop his ship from just flying into the landing bay.

honestly as movies go I think it is one of the worst of all time. I wanted to like it so bad. I worked my *** off to like that movie. I used to defend it for years.

 

How to make the prequel trilogy watchable.

1) Have Dooku and Darth Maul be the "main" Sith over all three movies. Don't kill off a new bad guy in each new movie. Give them time to develop and create a sense of menace. Do not show them taking orders from Palpatine, create a bit of suspense about them. General Greivous was a cool looking character, so maybe have him along for the long haul as well.

2) Present Palpatine as a good guy. The dude who's fighting the good fight against UN style inertia and Jedi indecision. Have Anakin skywalker gravitate to him because of the apparent good he's doing.

3) Ditch Tatooine and all the childhood rubbish. If it needs to be on screen a couple of flashbacks will be enough, most of the Phantom menace can be reduced to half a dozen lines of exposition. Start the series with a Anakin in his late teens. That way he's old enough for a bit of mutual attraction to be happening when he meets Padme, not some weird creeped out WTF he's hitting on the babysitter kind of vibe.

4) End the 3rd pre-quel with a reveal that Palpatine was the puppet master behind the scenes. There was no sense of drama about Palpatine because we all knew from the very beginning he was the bad guy, even people I know who had never seen the original series picked him as the Sith master as soon as he came on screen. Make Anakin's seduction by the dark side seem like a seduction, not grabbing a jar with skull and cross bones labelled "danger poison" and chugging it.