The Definitive Evisceration of The Phantom Menace *NSFW* 629
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samzenpus
from the meesa-completely-agree dept.
from the meesa-completely-agree dept.
cowmix writes "When TPM came out ten years ago, its utter crappiness shocked me to the core and wounded a entire generation of geeks. My inner child had been abused and betrayed. I moped around, talking to no one, for almost two weeks. I couldn't bring myself to see #2 or #3, whatever they were called. Now, a decade later, comes Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review, the ultimate, seven-part, seventy minute analysis of this mother of all train wrecks. Not only does it nail how the film blows, but tells us why. Time, apparently, does not heal all wounds." Or, if you prefer all 7 parts embedded in one page, you can check out slashfilm's aggregation.
Phantom storytelling (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Demo Reel (Score:5, Interesting)
The real problem is that George Lucas wrote it. As a generic sort of idea man, Lucas is great, but the more involved he is in the film, the worse it gets. The reason The Empire Strikes Back is probably the best of the bunch is because Lucas was at his most distant from the whole process.
Frankly, the prequels were a letdown. Episode III is clearly the best, but that's pretty relative. It still sucks a lot more than even the most dismal of the original trilogy; Episode VI, but compared to TPM and Attack of the Clones (I mean, that really is a retarded name), it's a brilliant film.
Lucas seems to have a hard time building any kind of dramatic tension. In place of a decent script and dialogue, he puts in ever more insanely huge spectacles. In Episode III, for instance, instead of a battle between Anakin and Obiwan around a lava crater (as was originally expounded in the book for Episode IV, Lucas, who seems incapable of writing the kind of chilling dialogue that would go on between a former master and pupil and friend, replaces it with a WHOLE MOLTEN PLANET. I mean, it's eyecandy to be sure, but every time I watch those scenes, I feel like I was robbed of what could have been an extraordinarily dramatic moment.
TPM lacks any kind of useful dramatic device. It holds the worst aspects of Lucas's filmmaking, with little or nothing of some of the better aspects of the franchise.
Great Example of IP Abuse (Score:3, Interesting)
I haven't seen it, but I'm glad someone devoted the time to do this.
The prequels, and especially the replacement of the original trilogy with the "re-mastered" Lucas-edited crap are great examples of how destructive exclusive IP can be to creative works.
"The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell."
That is what George Lucas became to his own films. After a great piece of artwork has become culturally accepted, it should be cast in stone, and be preserved as it is.
Every film is flawed (Score:3, Interesting)
Read Mr. Cranky and he will make the greatest film on the planet sound terrible. Every film is flawed.
The prequels on the whole failed to live up to lofty expectations. But they aren't terrible on a Batman and Robin scale either.
Episode 1 ultimately fails due to a poorly written script. Not just in dialogue, but also in structure. A tentpole blockbuster film comes down to a series of meetings followed by a series of meetings. Lucas forget screenwriting 101 - show, don't tell. That being said, the saber duels in Episode 1 are the best of the series. The pod race sequence is pretty decent. The movie also invented 8.1 channel sound, didn't it?
I don't understand the massive vitrol aimed at films that ultimately aren't half as terrible as people would like us to believe. The same person who wrote this probably sat through Transformers 2 without having an aneurysm. Really, which film was worse?
Re:Good Material But Lengthy and Bad Delivery (Score:3, Interesting)
How about you watch the whole thing and then start your diatribe?
I thought I made it pretty clear that if you want me to watch an hour and ten minute critique of a two hour and thirteen minute movie, you had better do a better job than what I saw in the first ten minutes. Nothing groundbreaking was presented to me in the first ten minutes and on top of that I was getting pretty annoyed with the guy's intonation. All I'm saying is that it's not my cup of tea. If you found something worthy of note in part whatever that you think is brilliant, let's hear it.
But who is he and what has he done to contribute to modern cinema? He sure speaks like everyone's a fucking moron for not seeing all the problems with The Phantom Menace. Yet I could have presented films where the exact techniques he criticizes actually work. He himself shows some of these movies, why did it work in the Usual Suspects but not The Phantom Menace to leave the enemy confusingly hidden the whole time? "Because TPM is for kids" does not suffice. If I give you seventy minutes of my life, I expect a comprehensive analysis. I stand by my statements and will not devote any more time to this review.
We all know Lucas is no stranger to screwing with his old work. Maybe now, a decade later, he'll hack apart something that should be hacked apart and rework TPM to have a five minute pod racing scene, no Jar Jar Binks and a whole lot more interesting development? I think there are some good things in TPM but the bad things just overshadow anything worth watching.
Re:Demo Reel (Score:4, Interesting)
Apparently so did the rest of the world, and they seem to have taken it out on SGI. Poor SGI... it wasn't their fault!
SGI didn't fall from glory because of a three-coiled Lucas-branded turd. It failed because it made repeated strategic mistakes in the market. When 3D hit the desktop, they sat there watching people build clusters out of gaming consoles and making boards out of commodity components -- management was convinced it wasn't a threat. Then they made several attempts to change platforms to various Intel chips, and released Linux workstations. People didn't take them seriously after that (Yes, I am saying on slashdot that using Linux was a strategic mistake). They were nearly dead, delisted from the NYC, shareholders demanding they fold -- when they finally reversed course, hired a crisis team, and assessed the damage. But it was too late -- the economy didn't allow for a recovery, and the vulnerable shell of SGI was bought out, and its brand identity assumed by a company specializing in rackmount servers.
SGI died because management lost focus, got complacent, and fried like an egg in a frying pan in the recession. Besides, Hollywood was never SGI's main market -- it was the government and scientific institutions. For every CG animation you see, there's ten weather modeling simulations, and other massively-parallel graphic-intensive processes.
Re:Good Material But Lengthy and Bad Delivery (Score:3, Interesting)
"So from watching the first part, the guy raises some good points."
This is Slashdot and it's unreasonable of people to criticise you for not watching the TFV. They're obviously still on web 1.0 and obsessed with not reading TFA without extending standard /. protocols to FVs.
I'm on part 3 and it seems to be going the same way as TPM. It started well with a good pace and a plot that expounds some interesting details. Shame as he was onto something pretty good at the beginning but by the middle of part 3 I kept saying, "Well, I can't really agree with that". For example, it doesn't seem implausible, in story terms, that a corrupt trade regulation body would be carrying out an embargo for self serving reasons.
It's a shame that he couldn't have taken his own advice and edited out some of his crappier ideas.
Yeah, I was disappointed that Ep1 was a kids movie too. Most adults who grew up with the original trilogy were. But it could have been much worse and it does expand the SW universe with some interesting new details.
Anyway. Onwards...
Re:Lucas made the best film Lucas could make (Score:4, Interesting)
People keep saying this, and I really don't agree. The prequels could have been good movies (not necessarily great, but at least good, on par with the originals which were also not great), had Lucas simply relinquished the script-writing and directorial duties to some talented people. With a movie with that kind of budget, it shouldn't have been hard to find some good writers and a director to take these roles. Lucas could have instead stuck with being "creative director" or somesuch, and come up with ideas and drawings for aliens and ships and such, which is what he's actually good at. Instead, Lucas with his giant ego insisted on doing it all himself, and it came out as a steaming pile of shit.
If he had done this, we'd have had some decent movies at least, and while some people would certainly have complained, it wouldn't be anywhere near what we see now with just about everyone over the age of 13 saying these movies suck ass.
I barely remember the movie... (Score:5, Interesting)
...but I remember the hype and feelings of expectation my friends and I had about it. We paid full price for "Meet Joe Black" just to see the TPM trailer, then left immediately afterward. There were a lot of other people doing the same thing, to the point everyone was laughing and the ushers were promising the trailer would run again after the movie if everyone stayed.
After we left, we went to have dinner and talked endlessly, dissecting every second of the trailer at length, imagining what the plot would be, how they would eventually get to "New Hope", and then after dinner we went to an arcade and played video games.
I don't care a whit about the actual movie, but for me it'll always be about that evening with friends in New York and how much fun we had in total geek mode. Sadly, I can't say I've had a repeat of that experience since. So for that evening alone, I'll still say thanks to Lucas for making the movie in the first place. But, yeah, the movie itself sucked.
Re:TL;DW (Score:3, Interesting)
You're left with Qui Gon and Obi Wan beating up a bunch of droids with light sabres, then some blurry stuff where we just can't seem to pay attention, then Qui Gon and Obi Wan beating up Darth Maul with light sabres. Then the credits roll, and nobody even remembered the Lost Orb of Phantastacoria [darthsanddroids.net].
I've seen worse movies.
Re:Jar^2 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why a decade later (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:midichlorians (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Demo Reel (Score:3, Interesting)
The real problem is that George Lucas wrote it. As a generic sort of idea man, Lucas is great, but the more involved he is in the film, the worse it gets. The reason The Empire Strikes Back is probably the best of the bunch is because Lucas was at his most distant from the whole process.
You may not know how right you are. According to the Secret History of Star Wars [secrethist...arwars.com], not only was much of the story borrowed directly from other material, but he got extensive help from Hollywood friends to make it into a workable movie. Also that book makes the excellent point that Empire and Jedi really only rehash the original movie in more depth. Which can't exactly be that hard, when you look at it that way. Read that book, if you get the chance. It puts this Definitive Evisceration in perspective.
Anyway if he skipped both the borrowing steps and the getting help from others step the result probably should be a rather unimpressive ball of crap.
Re:Why a decade later (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought Episode III was good for precisely this reason: it's about a good person who turns evil for the right reasons. I and II I agree were just...eh. It's actually my favorite episode of the whole series, possibly second to the empire strikes back.
In all honesty though, all six of the Star Wars episodes (not to mention the extended mythos) is tacky science fiction with aliens being guys with masks on and a very black-and-white simplistic morality, and I chalk up most of the hate I-III get to when-I-was-your-age-movies-were-good nostalgia. That said, i didn't like them either;)
Re:Don't look now (Score:3, Interesting)
All of the films sucked.
Sorry, but no.
My wife was 27 when I met her in the 1990s. Although she was a huge movie fan, she hated science-fiction, and hadn't seen the Star Wars movies at all. It took some convincing, but she finally agreed to watch them with me. We rented "Star Wars", and watched it together. She liked it so much that she insisted we go rent the other two the same day.
Detach yourself, and watch any of the films with a critical eye. They are all awful.
Done, and it turns out you're completely wrong.
Re:Why a decade later (Score:4, Interesting)
Wasn't that supposed to be Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan?
I think Lucas wanted Obi-Wan to be that character, but the problem is that the Jedi are just not likable. They're all completely wooden and walk around like they have sticks up their ass. The prequels needed a rebel, and simply casting a cool actor to play a stuffy Jedi role doesn't magically turn that stuffy Jedi into a rebel.
Realistically, the one who had the most potential to become the cool likable character was Qui-Gon. So Lucas did nothing to flesh out the character, and killed him off in the first movie. Brilliant.
Re:Why a decade later (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Different Audience (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why a decade later (Score:3, Interesting)
Jar Jar was one of the best *characters* in the movie. He was the only one anyone really cared about and he was the only one who created any genuine character interaction (i.e. "Stop!", various looks of exasperation).
Without Jar Jar, the movie would have been even more dry and antiseptic than it was.
As our evil reviewer points out, most of the characters in this movie were boring and worse, indescribable as people.
Jarjar... clumsy, dumb, good with animals, lucky, irritating, friendly, brave, (you could go on a bit more)
It was sad to see so many human actors upstaged by an animation.
Did you like them? (Score:3, Interesting)
Because my mother sure liked the originals herself.
Re:Don't look now (Score:3, Interesting)
Um, no. I was 21 when I saw Star Wars in 1977. I saw it six times. I don't even remember if there were Star Wars toys in 1977. I remember my roommate made his own lightsaber with an old flashlight, a colored lens, and a lucite curtain rod.
What amazed me about the film was that the pulp science fiction I had grown up with could finally be realized on the big screen. Turns out that largely didn't happen, but that's another story. There finally existed a film that could show what I had to imagine up to then.
That's where my fond memories lie. Not some seven-year-old childlike wonder. I saw Star Wars as an adult, liked it as an adult, and then saw The Phantom Menace as an adult, and hated it as an adult. I think this "childlike wonder" argument is hogwash.
There's another thing we have to understand here -- 1977 turned around a decade-long downer trend in science fiction films. It seemed like there was an ironclad industry rule that scifi films had to have a black or at least frustrating ending. Star Wars, for all it's flaws, turned that around, and allowed you to leave the theater feeling good instead of wretched. Now, perhaps we've gone too far the other way, but at the time, it was what the audience needed.
Star Wars worked in spite of it's flaws. The Phantom Menace was merely an exercise in "more is not better".
Midichlorines turn magic into biology. (Score:3, Interesting)
I find it interesting that in a Star Trek film, Midichlorines (sp?) would have been not only accepted, but expected. Magic isn't allowed to exist in Star Trek.
In Star Wars, however, Magic is the rule. It's not allowed to be understood or reduced into a discrete and measurable phenomenon. It has to remain romantic and awe-inspiring.
Cross the line, (in either the Trek or Wars story universe), and it is taken as a grave offense. I was annoyed by it as much as anybody. But I do have to stop and ask, "Why?" In fact, I find this little feature of our culture enormously tremendously interesting. -Technology geeks are perfectly happy with magic; they want it, are enraptured by it, but only when it is safely contained and labeled within the fiction box. Outside that box, it is immediately despised and attacked even at the mere suggestion that it might have some bearing on our real world. Yes, this is a bit of an axe grinding, but nonetheless, it remains a point of un-answered curiosity for me.
Real magic makes many people severely uncomfortable to consider in our day to day lives. The concept of midichlorines, given the general despising of all things unscientific among the tech-geek crowd, should have been applauded by all those who hate the notion of religion or spirituality, etc. And yet, this is obviously not the case.
It is particularly interesting to me that 'real' magic is by no means actual magic, (as I understand it), but rather a collection of rule-driven forces we simply haven't managed to categorize yet. Wanting the concept of the Force to remain in the realm of the purely mysterious makes me think that something else is at play in the collective psyche of the engineer/Sci-Fi geek.
-Just an observation I have kicking around in my head with no formal answer yet.
-FL