Yes, it's that bad.
Posted on 02/13/2012 8:42:27 PM PST by nickcarraway
In the dock, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace stands accused. Counsel for the prosecution is Neil Smith. Counsel for the defence is Jonathan Crocker. Court is in session!
The Phantom Menace has the dubious honour of being perhaps the most despised film of the last 20 years. With expectations sky-high following everyone's favourite sci-fi trilogy, Part I, for many, failed to deliver the pure thrill the Star Wars universe promised in the 70s and 80s. George Lucas must have instantly regretted the inclusion of infamous alien rasta Jar Jar Binks.
With The Phantom Menace coming to cinemas in a new 3D re-release (The first of all six movies' 3D versions), MSN Movies held a debate. The question: Is The Phantom Menace that bad? Counsels Smith (prosecution) and Crocker (defence) have delivered their statements below. YOU are the judges. Please offer up your verdicts in the comments!
COMPARISONS TO THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY
The Prosecution The main difference between the original trilogy and Phantom? There's nothing at stake. Where Star Wars began by plunging us headlong into an intergalactic civil war in which entire planets hung in the balance, Phantom involves a dreary trade dispute in which the only things up for grabs are figures on a spreadsheet. The original trilogy charts a young man's rite of passage from humble farm boy to heroic knight. Phantom, to quote Simon Pegg, is "a veiled whine about having to pay taxes". The first three pictures are fun, fast and epic. Phantom is slow, confusing, meandering and dull.
The defence
Choreographed by Brit stuntman/swordmaster Nick Gillard (Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, Henry V, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, Wanted), the three-way "Duel Of The Fates" isn't just the best sword fight in any Star Wars film, it's one of the best sword
(Excerpt) Read more at movies.uk.msn.com ...
Quai Gon Jin
Actually, besides Maul, the only thing good in Phantom Menace was Watto. Tough to find an Italian running a chop shop in a galaxy far, far away, long, long ago.
Clearly you haven’t seen Star Trek 5 or Battlefield Earth.
However Attack of The Clones sucked worse.
Until I found that if you cut every scene with Anikin and Whats-her-name until they are hauled into the arena it is actually not that bad.
Bottom line for me: Between episode IV starting in 1977 and episode III in the new movies, Lucas destroyed his own story. So many inconsistencies, it’s not funny.
For one: Obiwan did not know Luke had a sister. Only Yoda knew that. But in episode III he is there to witness the twins being born.
I also felt, like others, he made Darth Vader way too young for the one we knew in the beginning. By the new storyline, Vader would barely be 40 years old in episode V. I don’t buy it.
The best part about the prequels is the rise of Senator palpatine. This part of the story is done almost entirely in the background, though, so you have to suffer through the foreground along with it.
Jar jar was an unfortunate case of target demographic pandering gone horribly wrong. In the first films, the ewoks were targeted towards pre teens and Lucas got away with it because the audience was in fact teens and pre teens. Jar jar fails because he was also created for pre teens, but the phantom menace audience was much older, they were original viewers of star wars now grown up.
“Jar Jar Binks “
The dreaded Space Basset....
I've also felt Lucas' timeline made no sense.
I think it's a bad joke for Lucas to keep re-releasing his films and changing them - Greedo didn't shoot first.
“Meesa Suck!”
I don’t even waste my time with new movies anymore. Nor do I watch any of that garbage that can be found on the alphabet channels.
“...just how MONMUMENTALLY STUPID the Jedi council was...”
You have to go no further than six or eight Jedi masters, including Yoda, sitting in a room with Chancellor Palpatine, and not realizing they’re within 10 feet of a Sith Lord.
Episode 4 - Awesome
Episode 5 - Awesome
Episode 6 - Muppet Movie, Crappity Crap Crap
Episode 1 - There are no words in the English language to describe how unbelievably sucky this movie was. The closest ones I can think of would not only get me banned from FR, but also off the entire internet
Episode 2 - (see episode 1)
Episode 3 - Still horrific, but did have some good scenes
And even then, Lucas handled it very poorly. What should have happened was that Anakin and Amidala got embroiled in a public sex scandal with their babies, which was verboten with the celibate Jedi. Anakin gets tossed out of the Jedi Order, is enraged, Palpatine picks him up, and then sends him back to the Jedi Council, where he breaks bad as Darth Vader, wiping out Windu and most of the other Jedi masters singlehandledly, with only Yoda escaping his wrath. Cut then to the battle with Obi-Wan, who manages to somehow overcome Vader at the lava pit.
THAT's what should have happened in Episode III.
Yes, it's that bad.
One more thing on episode 6, I had the overwhelming urge to run up to each and every one of those muppet ewoks and kick them like a football.
On episode 1, for young Anakin, and Jar-Jar, I was thinking more along the lines of wood chipper, then hydrochloric acid bath, followed finally with a few metric tons of magnesium fire started with with a good charge of thermite.
Since I cannot do those things, I think I will take my rage from the destruction of a cherished childhood memory out by doing some mailbox baseball at George Lucas’s house.
Well, time for my evening tea.
Yeah, the Jedi Council got exactly what it deserved.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.