The Phamtom Menace Revisited

It would be better if it was Dooku. I read his wikipedia and his story is interesting. He would be a good bad guy since he was once one of the most powerful jedai warriors and then he fell to the dark side.

 

Dooku as the apparent Sith Lord and Maul as the apparent apprentice.

 

Really did seem that way.

 

I think it was important we saw young Anakin and where he came from, especially the scenes with his mother as her death was the start of his raise to the dark side. By starting Episode 1 with him being a teen already and having a few throwaway lines explaining what happened and how he got where he was would hurt his journey and not make the viewer care about the stuff with his mother.

With that being said, they easily could have cut out all the crap Phantom Menace and jumped to his teenage years after Quin-Gon's funeral and for the last 15 or 20 minutes or so showing his training with Obi Wan. And end the movie with Palpatine coming up to him saying they're keeping a close eye on his development.

 

Wasn't really that much of a "twist" to have a sith infiltrate the old republic when you think about it. At least, it didn't feel that way at all.

 

I'd agree that in this way they failed the "latter" half of the series. I'd also agree that the role of Anakin was not only piss-poorly cast (fail actor has failed), but also poorly written throughout the prequels.

I believe it was already mentioned how (ep III) he'd bonded so closely with Palpatine to the point where he'd completely ignored the confession that death could not be cheated (possible plot fail). The bonding itself wasn't developed well enough (at least not to the extent of Obi/Anakin; Master/Padawan) and so it felt like it came out of nowhere at that point. Lots of things felt like that, to me at least, and so the story-telling takes a big hit, in my book.

 

Well I was going to write about how I thought part of the problem with these movies is that we know the ultimate outcome already so there's not a whole lot of suspense other than how Samuel L.'s character was going to be killed, how exactly Anakin turned into Darth Vader, etc. however while I was writing out a response I thought of 'The Dark Knight' with Harvey Dent turning into Two-Face. Everyone knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of when but the viewer rooted for the guy and didn't want him to turn and felt bad for him and then hated him all in a 2.5 hour movie. That's what great writing could have done for these movies, unfortunately they didn't have great writing. The movies could have been use to make us feel and care about Anakin and possibly Palpatine at the beginning of the movies and try and root against them becoming bad even though we know its going to happen. After all this series was Anakin's story, yet we have no reason to care about him since he comes off as an ungrateful, dumb kid. So why should we care that his mother and wife end up dying and he's left for dead by Obi Wan. We should have loved Anakin before the turn and absolutely hated him when he turned but there was just no emotion to it.

Again like I said in my first post in this thread, these movies are giant missed opportunities.

 

Problem is they did the stuff about how he cares for his mother so poorly no one felt any empathy. And there were what, 2 maybe 3 scenes with Anakin and Shimi, so a few flashbacks and half a dozen lines of exposition is giving the core reason for doing the movie more treatment than what was actually delivered.

You can do a lot dramatically with teen angst and guilt, but Lucas even managed to miss that barn door from 2 feet away.

 

When Obi-Wan leaves Anakin for dead he should be pissed off that Anakin has betrayed him, not because he's betrayed the prophecy, you know make it real personal. Perhaps even cause Padme's death in some way since dying in childbirth is so pre-20th century as to be unbelievable in a super hi tech future.

That then gives Obi-Wan a reason to realise that he's screwed up and goes into the hermit life for soul searching, not as some sort of guardian angel waiting to be activated by a random event 20 years later.

 

I agree with what you're saying but for some reason I don't think having flash backs would work, especially since they were never used before in the series. But maybe it's just me.

Yeah again I agree with you. The whole Padme's death fell flat for me. I mean her death should have been more emotional and dramatic. Maybe she should have been seriously injuried during the Obi/Anakin trying to stop them from fighting. That way Obi Wan could feel guilt for her dying and giving him a reason to watch over Luke/Leia later on in the series and Anakin could blame Obi Wan and the Rebellion for it, causing him to further slip into the dark side. Thus giving Obi Wan more of a reason to leave him for dead.

 

I think you meant to say "super high-tech past"

 

Yea, don't forget, It was "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

 

This isn't Star *gulp* Trek...

 

I hate it to say it, but I felt the Star Trek prequel was better than any of the Star Wars prequels. And I hate Star Trek.

 

Look at how much better the story telling was in the "Clone Wars" cartoon than the three prequel movies.

 

The one Asajj Ventress, or whatever her name was, as Dooku's apprentice and which ended with Greivous kidnapping Palpatine.

I'm not quite enough of a nerd to know my way around the EU in all its glory.

 

It's no wonder no one takes CNN seriously...