So, with Star Wars: The Force Awakens only a few days away (I'm not crying, you're crying), I decided to look back at the other Star Wars films that have come before it. Star Wars is such an important thing to me, because everyone has that one movie or franchise that really sticks with them as a kid, and this was mine.
I fell in love with Star Wars, and I fell hard.
So much so that I dedicated most of my childhood life to absorbing as much of Star Wars as I possibly could. I read many of the Expanded Universe books, I poured through lore books, books about weapons and vehicles, about the chronology of the overall universe, and paid many a visit to Wookieepedia. I was obsessed, and I still am to a lesser degree, so I still retain a lot of that knowledge, and a lot of those memories. Many of my warmest and fondest childhood memories involve Star Wars to a certain degree. All of that and much more is why I don't understand people who've never seen Star Wars, I just don't. But if we're talking specifically about this Star Wars film, then I get it.
Boy, do I get it.
I have an interesting relationship with this movie, because I don't actually hate it. I know it's bad. Terrible, even. But I don't hate it. It's probably because I saw this movie at a time before I thought about movies in the way that I do know. I didn't care about story, or characters, or how a movie looked, or how it sounded, or how I felt when I was watching it. I was but a young boy, staring wistfully into the twin suns of...my TV...the point is, it was just another Star Wars movie, and I loved Star Wars more than anything, so I loved this movie. And at this point, I don't even hate any of the prequels. I know that they're not good - they're actually objectively bad - but because they're Star Wars, I can't really bring myself to actually hate them.
Plus, I didn't grow up with the idea repeatedly slammed into my brain that this was the worst thing to ever happen to film, or to society in general. I think that at this point, saying that the Star Wars prequels are bad isn't exactly a revolutionary opinion. There are (probably) millions of people who've talked about every frame of it being wrong, especially online. And because of that, over the years, this film has built up quite the reputation for being one of the worst movies ever made. I've seen much worse, and I've hated much worse.
It surprised me how much of this movie I could sit through. I actually found it to be watchable, although it's just barely so. I was reaching my limit just as the final lightsaber battle started, and then the small part of my brain that retains childhood innocence kicked into full gear, and I made it to the end credits.
Overall, the real problem with this movie is, plain and simple, that it's boring. It might be one of the most boring movies I've ever seen. And even worse, this movie really doesn't really matter. Nothing happens in this movie that affects the rest of the Star Wars saga in a significant way. In Attack of the Clones, when Anakin says "I haven't seen Padmé in ten years" to Obi-Wan in the elevator, that's all that needs to be said. Because of that, the Internet's patented "machete order" of Star Wars excludes The Phantom Menace. I'd personally rather leave out Attack of the Clones.
This movie is actually pretty good for the first few minutes. The opening shots have a really cool, mysterious atmosphere, but once the dialogue starts, that all dissipates pretty quickly. And that's the biggest problem with this movie, with all of the prequels, really; the scripts are just terrible. The story makes no sense, and all of the dialogue doesn't sound like things that people would say. The performances are pretty bad too. Everyone sounds so robotic and uninterested, the worst of all being Jake Lloyd. I know that it's not really fair to make fun of little kids acting, and I'm not really that much better, but maybe George Lucas shouldn't have written in a little kid, just to eliminate the risk. Anakin's ten years older in the next one anyway, so they could have made him a teenager, maybe some sort of street-savvy rebellious kid. Then, that could have created some conflict with Ob-Wan because of their different personalities, but nope. Nothing interesting to be found here.
The closest thing to a good performance is Ray Park as Darth Maul, mainly because he doesn't talk.
I think that George Lucas tried to make The Phantom Menace smart and complicated, but it just has no focus. I'm convinced that this movie doesn't actually have a main character. There's just a group of people, and the perspective moves around, but never long enough for one character to be more significant than another. Look at A New Hope for an example; Leia, Han, and Obi-Wan are main characters, but it's clearly Luke's story, and the whole trilogy follows that. In this movie, it could be anyone. It could be Obi-Wan, but he doesn't do anything, it could be Qui-Gon, but he just seems to watch things happen, it could be Anakin, but he doesn’t show up until halfway through, or it could be Padmé, but she's useless. Whoever the main character was, it should have just been Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon shouldn't have been there at all, it should have just been Obi-Wan. It might even be Jar Jar, but...oh, god, let's talk about Jar Jar.
The most interesting part of this movie is actually the behind-the-scenes, but not in the way you'd think. Especially since George Lucas seems to think that Jar Jar is the key to this film, and if they screw him up, the whole thing falls apart, which explains a lot. I think the best part of all the behind-the-scenes is after George Lucas and the producers watch the movie for the first time, and after it’s done, they just kind of sit there and soak it all in. Because they've all just realized that it's a giant pile of crap, but they've sunk so much money into it, and it's all woven together in such a way - like a big, dumb quilt - that they can’t remove one thing without another making no sense, and together, it makes no sense.
The real downside to this movie is that the effects have dated so badly, and they’re all over the place, filling up the frame, just cramming as much as they can onscreen, but that doesn’t make a good movie. Also, because of that, this movie just doesn’t look or feel like Star Wars, it’s too clean, it’s too bright, it doesn’t have the same style, feel, or visuals. It just has a bunch of forced references, because pretty much all of the side characters from the original trilogy show up. It all feels so unnecessary, like Anakin Skywalker building C-3PO, or that R2-D2 just happens to be on Padmé's ship.
I fell in love with Star Wars, and I fell hard.
So much so that I dedicated most of my childhood life to absorbing as much of Star Wars as I possibly could. I read many of the Expanded Universe books, I poured through lore books, books about weapons and vehicles, about the chronology of the overall universe, and paid many a visit to Wookieepedia. I was obsessed, and I still am to a lesser degree, so I still retain a lot of that knowledge, and a lot of those memories. Many of my warmest and fondest childhood memories involve Star Wars to a certain degree. All of that and much more is why I don't understand people who've never seen Star Wars, I just don't. But if we're talking specifically about this Star Wars film, then I get it.
Boy, do I get it.
Plus, I didn't grow up with the idea repeatedly slammed into my brain that this was the worst thing to ever happen to film, or to society in general. I think that at this point, saying that the Star Wars prequels are bad isn't exactly a revolutionary opinion. There are (probably) millions of people who've talked about every frame of it being wrong, especially online. And because of that, over the years, this film has built up quite the reputation for being one of the worst movies ever made. I've seen much worse, and I've hated much worse.
It surprised me how much of this movie I could sit through. I actually found it to be watchable, although it's just barely so. I was reaching my limit just as the final lightsaber battle started, and then the small part of my brain that retains childhood innocence kicked into full gear, and I made it to the end credits.
Overall, the real problem with this movie is, plain and simple, that it's boring. It might be one of the most boring movies I've ever seen. And even worse, this movie really doesn't really matter. Nothing happens in this movie that affects the rest of the Star Wars saga in a significant way. In Attack of the Clones, when Anakin says "I haven't seen Padmé in ten years" to Obi-Wan in the elevator, that's all that needs to be said. Because of that, the Internet's patented "machete order" of Star Wars excludes The Phantom Menace. I'd personally rather leave out Attack of the Clones.
This movie is actually pretty good for the first few minutes. The opening shots have a really cool, mysterious atmosphere, but once the dialogue starts, that all dissipates pretty quickly. And that's the biggest problem with this movie, with all of the prequels, really; the scripts are just terrible. The story makes no sense, and all of the dialogue doesn't sound like things that people would say. The performances are pretty bad too. Everyone sounds so robotic and uninterested, the worst of all being Jake Lloyd. I know that it's not really fair to make fun of little kids acting, and I'm not really that much better, but maybe George Lucas shouldn't have written in a little kid, just to eliminate the risk. Anakin's ten years older in the next one anyway, so they could have made him a teenager, maybe some sort of street-savvy rebellious kid. Then, that could have created some conflict with Ob-Wan because of their different personalities, but nope. Nothing interesting to be found here.
The closest thing to a good performance is Ray Park as Darth Maul, mainly because he doesn't talk.
I think that George Lucas tried to make The Phantom Menace smart and complicated, but it just has no focus. I'm convinced that this movie doesn't actually have a main character. There's just a group of people, and the perspective moves around, but never long enough for one character to be more significant than another. Look at A New Hope for an example; Leia, Han, and Obi-Wan are main characters, but it's clearly Luke's story, and the whole trilogy follows that. In this movie, it could be anyone. It could be Obi-Wan, but he doesn't do anything, it could be Qui-Gon, but he just seems to watch things happen, it could be Anakin, but he doesn’t show up until halfway through, or it could be Padmé, but she's useless. Whoever the main character was, it should have just been Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon shouldn't have been there at all, it should have just been Obi-Wan. It might even be Jar Jar, but...oh, god, let's talk about Jar Jar.
Okay, so it's not
like Jar Jar is the worst character ever created on film, a racist, annoying
caricature that nearly ruins the entire movie, and destroyed all credibility
George Lucas had to creating characters...huh...actually, he is...moving on.
There's so much
wrong with the story. So many things that don't make sense, so many things that
contradict other things, and it gets so convoluted that you just don't care. Look at the ending of
the movie, where there’s four different action scenes going on. There's Qui-Gon
and Obi-Wan against Darth Maul, Padmé and her soldiers going to take
down the Viceroy, Jar Jar and the Gungans fighting the battle
droids, and Anakin up in space fighting the droid battleship. Half of that
doesn’t need to be in there, and if they'd cut out the Gungans and the space battle, it would have been much better, but George Lucas was so obsessed with pushing the limits of
special effects and making it bigger, louder and shinier. The only problem
is, it’s not interesting, it’s just overstuffed, and it gets boring.
This movie also makes changes to the mythology of Star Wars that make it worse. I absolutely hate the idea of
midichlorians, it's just a stupid idea to try to explain the Force in general. The Force should have
just been this mysterious, undefined thing, and since people hated that idea of giving that a microbial explanation, it’s never mentioned again in the prequels. Except for one time in Revenge of the Sith when Lucas tries to explain how Anakin was actually born out of this bacteria.
I'M SURE GLAD THAT'S NOT REALLY STUPID.
I'M SURE GLAD THAT'S NOT REALLY STUPID.
The most interesting part of this movie is actually the behind-the-scenes, but not in the way you'd think. Especially since George Lucas seems to think that Jar Jar is the key to this film, and if they screw him up, the whole thing falls apart, which explains a lot. I think the best part of all the behind-the-scenes is after George Lucas and the producers watch the movie for the first time, and after it’s done, they just kind of sit there and soak it all in. Because they've all just realized that it's a giant pile of crap, but they've sunk so much money into it, and it's all woven together in such a way - like a big, dumb quilt - that they can’t remove one thing without another making no sense, and together, it makes no sense.
If I'm being
honest, I do like parts of this movie. I can enjoy the action scenes,
especially the final lightsaber battle, though it's greatly helped by John
Williams' amazing soundtrack. John Williams' music is the best part of the prequels, there's no argument, and arguably the most memorable part of the entire saga.
The final lightsaber battle between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Darth Maul is awesome,
but even that has problems. It looks like
they're just swinging to hit where the lightsabers are going to be next (but maybe they knew because of the Force). Thankfully though, the choreography got better over the rest of the prequels. The problem with other
action scenes is that there's no real tension, because the battle droids really present
no challenge to the Jedi, and just get cut down in seconds. Other scenes
just go on too long, like the Podracing scene. It's a little fun at first, but
then it just feel like you’re watching the same thing over and over. These scene are fun when you're 11, but they get progressively less so over the years.
The real downside to this movie is that the effects have dated so badly, and they’re all over the place, filling up the frame, just cramming as much as they can onscreen, but that doesn’t make a good movie. Also, because of that, this movie just doesn’t look or feel like Star Wars, it’s too clean, it’s too bright, it doesn’t have the same style, feel, or visuals. It just has a bunch of forced references, because pretty much all of the side characters from the original trilogy show up. It all feels so unnecessary, like Anakin Skywalker building C-3PO, or that R2-D2 just happens to be on Padmé's ship.
And re-watching
this movie, I never realized how dumb R2's intro is. They try to make it a
reveal; Padmé says "What’s the droid's number", there's a dramatic pause, and then someone answers "R2-D2". But we
all know that it's R2-D2, it would have been a reveal if it wasn’t R2-D2 at that point.
And why would
anyone trust Darth Sidious? If you’re a businessman (businessNemoidian, my bad) who runs a Trade Federation, why
would you listen to this guy dressed like Satan?
And why are the
Toydarians immune to the Force? How could someone be immune to a universal
force? Do they have anti-midichlorians?
There are so
many more questions I could ask, but I would just get angrier and angrier until
my brain explodes, because that’s what the Star Wars prequels do to people
They break them.
In the end, The Phantom Menace is boring and stupid. I can find some enjoyment in it, but it
disappointed an entire generation, and now I can understand why. It's by no means the worst film ever made, there are definitely far worse. It just misses the mark in every single way, and given all of the excitement for it, it turned out the worst way it possibly could have. Words cannot describe how much I don't want to write the same words about The Force Awakens in a few days.
But in terms of Star Wars, the worst is
still to come.
Comments
Post a Comment