Nothing in The Phantom Menace makes any sense at all. It comes off like a script written by an 8 year old. It's like George Lucas finished the script in one draft, like turned it in, and they decided to go with it without anyone saying that it made no sense at all, or was a stupid, incoherent mess. I guess at this point who's gonna question George, or tell him what to do? He controls every aspect of the movie. He probably got rid of those people that questioned him creatively a long time ago. I also think that everyone just assumed that a Star Wars prequel would be an instant hit, regardless of what the plot was. Really.. how hard could it be to screw up? It's like screwin up mashed potatoes. You boil the water, you pour in the packet.
Number 1: The Characters
The biggest and most glaring problem with the Phantom Menace is the characters. This is like the most obvious part of movie making, but I guess I gotta explain it when talking about this turd. So let's start at Movie Making one oh one shall we? You see, in most movies the audience needs a character to connect with. Typically this character is called a Pro-ta-gawnist. When you're in a weird movie with like Aliens, and monsters, and weirdos, the audience really needs someone who's like a normal person like them to guide them through the story. Now this of course doesn't apply to every movie, but it works best in the sci-fi, superhero, action, and fantasy genres. I picked a few examples to illustrate this point:
Marty McFly, John McLane, Billy Peltzer, Sarah Connor, Neo, Charlie Bucket, Peter Parker, Cliff Secord, Johnny Rico, Rocky Balboa, and Kevin Bacon.
So in addition to being like an everyday kinda schlub, usually the pro.. prutugunist is someone that's down on their luck, in a bad place in their lives, or someone who everything just doesn't always go perfectly for them. Eventually they'll be confronted with some kind of obstacle or struggle that they gotta deal with. If we like them, we hope they succeed. The drama in the film is the result of us rooting for them against opposition. Eventually our prumurmrurm will find themselves in the lowest point where it seems like all is lost, but eventually they'll pull through and conquer whatever force opposes them. It's satisfying when our hero gets ahead from where they started off at. They make like a change. This is called an Arc.
Often too, they'll get the girl in the end as icing on the cake. Now I need to explain that I don't think that all movies should be the same, or conform to the same kind of structure, but it works well in certain kinda movies. So unless you're the Cohen Brothers, David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Lars Von Treer, David Cronenberg, Gus Van Sand, Quentin Tarantino, John Waters, Wes Anderson, Sam Peckenpaw, Terry Gillian, Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzogg, or Jim Jarmush, you really shouldn't stray away too far from this kind of formula. Especially if you're making a movie that's aimed at children, and has a cartoon rabbit in it that steps in the poopy. This is all of course completely applicable to the original Star Wars film, and the character of Luke Skywalker. This was accomplished even without all the wonders of modern CGI.
Now with all you've just learned, in this video that I have made for educational purposes, I want you to tell me who the main character of The Phantom Menace is. I can tell you it's not the Jedi. They were just on some kind of boring mission that they didn't really care about. Plus they were fucking boring themselves. It wasn't Queen Amidala, cuz she was some foreign Queen who the movie was certainly not really about specifically either. You might be thinking that it's Anakin, cuz he was like a slave and saved the day at the end by accidentally blowing up the starship, but the audience doesn't meet Anakin until fourty five minutes into the movie. And then the things that are happening around him are pretty much out of his control or understanding. If a protagonist has no concept of what's goin on or what's at stake, then there's no real tension or drama.. without that there's no story. So the conclusion is that there isn't one.
Before the movie opened I was really excited to hear that Scottish actor Ewan McDonald was going to be playing Obi Wan Kenobi. I thought that was a great choice, and he'd be perfect as the lead of this movie. But he wasn't really.. He just sat on the ship and complained a lot. So YOU may like the characters, you know, if you're stupid.
Number 2: The Story
The second biggest problem with The Phantom Menace is the whole story and the way it was told. It's almost mind boggling how complex the awfulness is.
From the very start of this movie I could tell something was really wrong. Just by the way it started. It opens with some boring pilot asking for permission to land on a ship that looks like a half-eaten dough nut with the dough nut hole in the middle..
What the fuck is that?! Then two cloaked figures walk into a room in a completely flat angle. They sit down in a conference room, drink tea, and wait to talk about a trade dispute with something that looks like my ex-wife. While they eventually do get to the ball-numbing, mindless action that the fan boys crave, I found myself utterly bored already. Compare this fecal matter to the opening of the original Star Wars.
You see, a guy named William Shakesman once said "Brevity is the soul of wit". This just means don't waste my time. You keep it nice and simple. I said stop wasting my time.. STOP IT! Without saying one word of awkward, boring, political dialogue that goes on for ten minutes, we know everything we need to know just by the visuals. We get a sense of how small and ill-equipped the rebels are, and how large and powerful the Empire is. The low angle implies dominance, and the length of the Star Destroyer implies the long reach of the Empire. This shot says everything we need to know without saying one word. In fact this is so genius I have a feeling that George Lucas had nothing to do with it, and probably fought against putting it in the movie.
So this comparison of openings is a small example of the overall styles of both films. The original trilogy was a modern day homage to the classic adventure serials of the past. The kind I used to watch when I was in my 40's. Good vs. Evil, the classic hero on a journey, the adventurous rogue, a damsel in distress, the wise old sage, gay robots, and an epic quest of discovery. The new movies are about shoving as much crap into each shot as possible. This is part of the reason why I find the special edition so fucking offensive. Cuz you're into what's happening in the movie, and they keep shoving more shit on the screen to distract you. It reminds me of a child waving his arms in the background for attention. Doesn't Lucas realize that cluttering the frame up with shit is NOT what makes Star Wars good?
So the film is called The Phantom Menace, and by the nature of the story there is no clear villain. Hey idiot! You're not making The Usual Suspects here. You're making a movie for children right? How `bout a bad guy in the movie who's motivation is clear? The prequels should be very similar in style to the originals, cuz I don't like things that are different.
Number 3: Death and Space Taxes So when you find yourself thinking things like Huh? or What? when you're watching how illogical characters act in a movie, it's not really a good sign. So at the end of the movie Yoda makes Obi Wan a Jedi Knight, even though in the opening titles it says he's a Jedi Knight. So we'll just call em Jedi Knights too. People call me a murderer even though I ain't never been caught yet.
So the Jedi's are there to do WHAT exactly? According to the opening title crawl it was to settle a dispute over the taxation of trade routes.. ooohhh.
So what makes the Jedi Knights experts in Intergalactic Trade Laws? So the Trade Federation have set up a blockade around Naboo in order to stop them from getting space supplies, which instantly causes some kind of crisis that we never see............ OK... I don't get it. Why would an organization called The Trade Federation wanna blockade trade? Usually a blockade is to stop something you DON'T want to get in. You see we once set up a naval blockade around Cuba to stop the Russians from setting up missile launchers there. It was a little event you might a heard of. It wasn't a big deal, y'know, but you might've heard of it. It was called WORLD WAR 1! Geez, you stupid people gotta learn your history right.So if the Trade Federation were like merchants moving goods and services around the Galaxy, then why did they seem more like a military with armies of robots? However, if they were like a bureaucracy that was in charge of overseeing and regulating trade routes, you'd think they'd be happy about the whole new space taxes. Unless all the taxes went straight to like Space Obama, and they didn't see any of it? The point is I'm still not sure what the dough nut ships were there to do. And don't any of you f*****s tell me that it was explained more in the novelization of some Star Wars book. What matters is the movie. I ain't never read one of them Star Wars books, or any books in general for that matter, and I ain't about to start. Don't talk about them stupid video games, or, or novels.. comic books or any of that fucking crap. I see enough of that shit.
Anyways.. So I realize that Senator Palpatine was using the Trade Federation to create a crisis to advance himself politically. Like that was the plot, I think? But the conflict from the blockade and the subsequent invasion is the ENTIRE MOVIE! Understanding what role the Trade Federation played in this is important. Y'know what the blockade was about, who was getting taxed, what kinda supplies were so crucial to the Naboo? What was it, like medical supplies? Was there some kinda plague? Did they not have the capacity to survive on such a lush planet with a huge power reactor for ONE day without space trade? You see I would have accepted the idea of some kinda mystery villain if the basics were at least clear.
So when two guys wearing robes come on board their ship, Rosie the Robot just assumes they are Jedi Knights and tells the Chaternarians even though almost every single character wears robes in Star Wars. Then somehow this robot knows or thinks they are Jedi Knights. Hey idiots, so much for the disguise! Even a protocol droid could sniff you out. Maybe it's not a disguise, but whatever. So the Chaternarians immediately inform this mystery guy that they're running this scam with - a guy who looks like Satan - that Jedi's are on the ship, and of course - so that we can have an action scene - he tells them to kill the Jedi. You see they never once went into the room to say hello to the Jedi, and that they'll be right with them, but they tell Palpatine that they are Jedi's. And then they try to gas them to death based solely on the hunch of a droid. Who's fucking with my medicine?!?!?
Now this is where it gets complex my lovelies. So I think this is what happened, I'm not sure, but Palpatine wanted to create a crisis on Naboo so that the naïve young Queen would propose a vote of No Confidence for Chancellor Valorum. This would lead to Palpatine getting elected in his place right? Like, I mean that's the plot?... I think? So how does killing the Jedi or creating a communications blackout on the planet even get word back to the senate that there is a CRISIS? At the end of the movie, Amidalan goes back to the planet to solve the problem herself, cuz the Senate wanted to send an independent team to investigate whether or not the invasion was real. I guess the testimony of two Jedi Knights wasn't good enough. Those were the guys that Valorum trusted enough to settle the whole dispute in the first place. That don't make sense.
So anyways when, when the guys told Palpatine that, that Jedi's were there he should've said this. Tell the Jedi that there will be no negotiations. Tell them that you plan to invade the planet next, and then send them back to Coruscant to inform the Senate. Instead he tells them to do the exact opposite of what will help his plan. Like, he wanted her to sign the treaty right? I want that treaty signed! He seemed really intent on having her sign the treaty to make the invasion legal. So what if she was like a total coward and actually signed the treaty? Like right away? Then the crisis would be over and there'd be no need for a vote of no confidence.
See what I mean, this sounding like an 8 year old wrote it?
So anyways, it's time to kill off the Jedi. Oh good.. How do they go about it? Well, they start pumping in an obvious deadly white gas into the room. This alerts them to danger. Well actually blowing up their ship does? I guess they should have pumped in the gas first, then after the Jedi's were dead, THEN blow the ship up? Anyways, back to the gas. Hey idiots! Have you ever heard of Carbon Monoxide? It's odourless and colourless. Your wife won't even know what hit her. Oh.. I mean Jedi. Also moments earlier, the Jedi willingly drink tea that was given to them while they discussed how everything felt really fishy. Hey, you guys got any rat poison lyin around? PUT IT IN THE TEA! PUT IT IN THE TEA! THEY'LL DRINK IT! PUT THE RAT POISON IN THE T- So anyways, then the Dioxicin starts filling up the room and.. Hey wait. How does Qui-Gon know what kind of gas it is before he smells it?
Isn't that like a contradiction? If you smell the deadly white gas, I guess it's a little too late. Maybe he just got a little sniff of it. Anyways, y'know this idea COULD work, because we see that the Jedi hold their breath. Which implies there's some kind of danger of them running OUT of breath, right? Maybe they can hold their breath for like two hours cuz their Jedi's? Well no that's not true, cuz later in the film we see they need to use them breathing things underwater for that short swim to the Gunga sea world. So anyways, it's like the Jedi know that the droids are gonna open up the door in a very short time before they run out of breath, because they don't immediately start trying to cut their way out. Which is what I'd be doing.
I'd probably be screaming too, like a little girl. So what are they DOING in there?!
Then the dumbest line in the movie is said. They must be dead by now. Destroy what's left of them.
What does that mean?... Hey asshole!!! How `bout you leave the door closed for like 4 hours, and then if they try to cut through the door, start shooting them in the face. Then pump in more gas, and keep pumping it in. Obviously you've never suffocated a hooker that was trying to escape from your crawl space before. I'd recommend spraying RAID in there. You need to go with the fast kill, low irritant kind. It's in the blue bottle. It works the best. You'll need about 6 cans though.
What was I talking about?.... Oh, right. So they open the doors anyways and they let the Jedi out, and attack them with completely useless robots. Just tell em to leave and that you don't wanna negotiate, and then when their ship flies out of your space dock, SHOOT IT WITH LASERS! Also we need to consider the fact that killing two Jedi that were sent there as peaceful ambassadors would be a pretty heinous crime in the eyes of the Galactic Senate. An organization that runs everything, including space taxes. I mean you could just claim that they never got there, but now you've got the burned wreckage of their ship inside your horribly burned docking bay.
Number 4: Who's Doing What? Where? Why?
Why are the Shaternarians taking orders from this mystery hologram again? What did he promise them that would be so worth risking their entire organization for? The location of the fountain of youth? A planet made of gold? Corrective surgery for this woman's face? How about a night in Megan's Fox hole? Seriously, what was it? Oh we're never told, are we? Generally speaking it's easy to get a handful of insane people to follow you on some kind of illegal or crazy scheme, but when you're talking about a huge organization that's run with military efficiency, then their probably gonna want something in return for the use of 30 of their ships and risking everything. Darth Sidious can't really promise them future political favors because it would give away who he is. When they get arrested at the end they could just say, It was like a hologram in a cloak. He made us do it! In fact he looks like.. Palpatine. And he sounds like him too! We got recordings of the hologram, you wanna look at em? I find it hard to believe that these guys never started pointing fingers after they got caught.
Number 5: I can't put enough quotation marks around the word "Story" so I won't try
So Obi Wan and Qui-Gon, they end up in the hangar bay somehow where the droid armies are being staged for an invasion. Why don't the Jedi's just start fighting all of them? Then steal a ship and head back to Coruscant to tell the Galactic Senate what's goin on? It's not so crazy, cuz later in the film they attempt to run the blockade with ONE ship and they make it through. The fact that they even TRIED that makes this a possible option. But instead Qui-Gon in all his wisdom thinks it's a better idea to go down with the army to quote Warn the Naboo. Hey genius! If you're going down with the army, don't you think it's a little too late to warn them ABOUT the army? And what the fuck are the Naboo gonna do anyways?! They don't even have a real army, just volunteers. So the droid army just rolls in, unchallenged, as expected. Just like the Nazi's into France in a little historical event you might've heard of? Mmm what was it called, uhm THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
Anyways, so then for no reason they decide to stow away on different ships. Is this guy a fucking retard?! Maybe that's why they call him Qui-Gon Jin.. cuz he's always drinkin gin. This is a minor point, but what would going down on the planet on separate ships accomplish? Let's think about this.
1: Increase the chances of getting caught by 100%.
2: Have no one else to help you if you get caught and get into a fight with robots.
3: Increase the possibility of getting separated by hundreds, if not thousands of miles by not knowing where the other craft is going to land on the planet. But thankfully they both aren't discovered, and they meet up in the same spot in the woods.
Then although the REASON for them going down to the planet was to warn the Naboo about the rmy, they decide to follow a cartoon rabbit underwater..
Why?! Why not just keep moving towards the Naboo city? Hey Jinnie! I thought you went down there to warn the Naboo. How is this gonna accomplish that?
What was your plan from the beginning when you got down there? Did you PLAN to find a magical underwater craft that would go through the planet's core, or did you just plan to run along the surface? This is the first point they shoulda ditched Jar Jar. This is also the point when the movie starts to officially fall apart. This is the moment when the Star Wars saga is now damaged totally beyond repair. The lapses in common sense and logic begin to compound on the movie and now it is broken. I could end this review here, but I'm really just getting started.
Number 6: Invasion! Of boring..
So the Naboo seem to be on the case about this thing. The old guy seems to know what's going on. And although they're a peaceful people with no army, this asshole seems to be an expert in the process of planetary invasions.
So what exactly is the purpose of this invasion? It's almost like after Lucas wrote the invasion scenes he didn't really know what to do next. So he thought he'd make the Queen have to sign a treaty to make the invasion legal. I mean, why not? First of all forcing someone to sign a treaty sorta contradicts the purpose of a signature on a treaty. You might as well just forge it if you're gonna MAKE her sign it.
So meanwhile Qui-Gon booze and Obi Wan are in the underwater city. Qui-Gon is still talking about warning the Naboo that they are about to be attacked, when he really doesn't know that they are actually going to attack them. Then since Qui-Gon is jumping to conclusions and making shit up, Obi Wan starts doing it too! First of all, the only thing that the Jedi's know at this point is that they were sent to settle a trivial dispute about taxing trade routes. All of a sudden Obi Wan thinks he knows the entire plan of the Trade Federation. How does he know they plan to take control of the surface, AND the underwater city too? Maybe they just wanna steal some kind of priceless artifact from the Naboo. Maybe the Naboo did some kind of horrific act against the Trade Federation and they're just getting some revenge?
"You and the Naboo form a symbiont circle. What happens to one of you will affect the other. You must understand this!"
And what does that even mean?!?! How is a totally isolated city underwater affected at all by the Naboo being attacked by droids on the complete other side of the planet? YES, I said the other side of the planet because, "The speediest way to de Naboo tis going through the planet core.." By planet core I assume he means PLANET CORE. Like, the centre? Usually that's what a core is.
So they spend 2 hours flying deeper and deeper into the planet underwater. I guess to emerge on the other side of the planet? I guess? This begs the question, why did the droid armies land on the other side of the planet where the Gunga city is? If they expected no opposition, why land in the middle of forests and spend time chopping through the woods so far away from your target? Why not just land right outside the city? Or IN the city? Anyways so like idiots they surface the bongo right in the middle of an occupied city in broad daylight, and then Jinnie just looks around without any attempt at subterfuge.
Inside the city, Queen Aminalan has been captured by the green guys, but instead of forcing her to sign the treaty right then and there, or keeping her locked up inside the big capital building under heavy guard, they inexplicably send her away from them. Remember, this is the most important person in their whole plan, and they send her to be processed?... In some place called Camp 4. Oohh, but at least they remembered to send her with a whopping 8 battle droids to protect her from the 2 Jedi's that they just discussed they had not found yet. But don't worry. These battle droids have proven very effective against Jedi Knights.... Ooooohhhhh. Wait, nooooo...
Y'know it really adds a lot of tension in the movie when the main enemy forces are totally ineffective. Oh it shouldn't be a problem, wooo now I'm really on the edge of my seat.
Number 7: Escape!! From the planet of boring
Ok so they free the Naboo air force and then they get on a silver jet thing, and they run through a blockade. Which again I remind you, the point of a blockade is to stop ships from getting through. So Qui-Gon Jin could have very easily gotten everyone killed. Does anyone smell gin? Hey! It's 11:30 in the morning! Who's been drinking?
So no one's really nervous about running this blockade until the shield generator gets hit. Shabams, Blammo, Shabams! Ooo, then SUDDENLY it's dangerous. Hey wait. Just like knowing what kind of deadly gas it is before you smell it, how does the shield generator get hit while the shields are up? Shouldn't the- Aah fuck it. Wait, slow down asshole. Everything everyone says in this movie makes no sense so I have to keep up here OK, stop. OK wait, how will you be sitting ducks without a shield generator? Are you implying that WITH the shield generator you WOULDN'T be sitting ducks? That you would be able to just breeze through this blockade somehow? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a blockade if any ship with an operational shield generator would suddenly not be a sitting duck and could go through the blockade? I would think with Trade Federation ships of that size and quantity, you'd get blown to fucking pieces with or without shields if they all fired on you. So anyways R2-D2 sticks a thing in a thing and fixes the shield generator. Then the dude says "deflector shields up at maximum!" OK, so then that suddenly relieves all the tension in the scene, and allows them to escape the blockade. If you'll notice though after the shields are back up at maximum, they don't get hit again. So really R2 fixing the shield generator did nothing at all. M-maybe it gave them the confidence to escape?
So then after they show no emotion at all about the droids being picked off one by one, they inexplicably send R2 up to the queen to get a pat on the head I guess. She thanks the little piece of equipment like it's a person. Hey, nobody thanked the ship.. I think THAT did a lot more to help them escape. You see normal people don't think of droids as people. Even the kind hearted Luke Skywalker reacts with sarcasm when introducing himself to R2-D2. Would a queen really thank a droid? I don't know... Maybe. Again this is a film for babies.
Wait I gotta get this straight here. Hold on. So at this point the queen in the middle that's wearing black is the decoy, but the real queen is Padme who's in the orange. Right? OK. So the handmaiden decoy then ORDERS THE QUEEN to go clean the droid? Did Amidalan ASK to be sent off on a menial task prior to this so she could have a scene where she meets Jar Jar Binks? You'd think the real queen would wanna hang out in the throne room area to stay
current on any updates about what's goin on? And why did they even bring a dirty droid out to the queen? Did they really think that a member of royalty was gonna care that a droid fixed something and then personally thank it?
Number 8: I'm gonna slit my wrists
sigh It's hard to stomach any more of this shit. I still don't know who the main character is, and why we should care about any of this. At around this point in the original Star Wars movie, we've been with Luke almost the whole time getting to know him. We see his plight, his hopes and dreams, we feel his frustration, and then his sadness. The slow build up added depth, and emotion, and anticipation for the story to expand. In the Phantom Menace we have nothing! We have a monotone queen who's hiding from signing a treaty that's supposed to do something. Why in fuck's name should we care at all? I don't care about ANY of these characters.
And to top that we constantly have to question every single action that's taken by Qui-Gon.. the "wise" Jedi. Almost every single line of dialogue makes no sense. If you're trying to avoid drawing attention to yourself, then why are you taking Jar Jar Binks into the city with you? Leave him on the ship! You say you took R2-D2 because he has the specs of the type of part you need, but yet Watto seems to know what you're talking about, and you have a thingy that shows it. R2 is never used for that purpose and does nothing at all. The two most effective, clear-minded, logical guys stay on the ship and wait while the clumsy idiot, the slow-moving droid, a vulnerable attractive young woman, and a drunk go wandering around the dangerous city. These two guys probably would've had the part by now.
Number 9: If I get a brain aneurysm as the result of this review, can I hold the film makers responsible?
At this point I realize who the Phantom Menace is. No it's not Jorge, it's Qui-Gon Jin. His character is totally baffling to me and I do not know why he's in this movie. If you ask me, Qui-Gon Jin and Obi Wan Kenobi should have been combined to form a new character, called Obi Wan Kenobi. Obi Wan should have been the younger, eager, adventurous Jedi who found Anakin, formed a bond with him and then really wanted to train him in the Jedi arts when Yoda told him no. Instead Obi Wan, who seemed totally irritated with Anakin the whole movie, suddenly wants to train him at the end only because Qui-Gon said to. If they did have to have Qui-Gon, they should have had him on the ship, just like meditating the whole movie, saying very little and,
and just being wise. Then when Qui-Gon dies, Obi Wan is left to move on without an older, wiser voice of reason, thus setting the stage for a poorly trained Anakin.
So for no reason Obi Wan is the one who does not want to defy the council. He's not a risk taker, and he complains all the time like a woman. Then the older, wiser Jedi is the opposite of what he should be. Let's break down Qui-Gon. All the way to his Midichlorians.
Number 1: He has very questionable moral values. Qui-Gon Jin repeatedly uses his Jedi mind trick to his advantage. Whether it's to get Boss Nass to give him a Bongo.. which they completely trash, to use worthless money to scam Watto out of his ship parts, or to fix a legitimate bet to his advantage. It's generally wrong to do these things. Wouldn't you say? You can argue that the ends justify the means, but if that's the case then why didn't Qui-Gon just steal the part from Watto? He could sneak in in the middle of the night, and just take the part. Or take it by force, and I don't mean that kind of force, I mean choke Watto while Padme grabs the part and they run out of the shop. Basically it's the same as trying to trick him into accepting a worthless currency for the part. In the end, Watto's just out of the part.
This also leads me to believe that Qui-Gon Jin is incredibly stupid. He could have just went to another junk dealer and used his Jedi mind trick to swap out the republic credits for money that Watto would take. In fact when they arrive in town he says, "We'll try one of the smaller dealers."
Smaller dealers.. well that implies there's larger ones. Watto tells him he's the only guy in town who's got the part. Well either Watto is using an older than dirt sales tactic, or Qui-Gon can really pick out which shop to go to randomly. Oh wait, I guess Midichlorians told him where to go so that he could find the boy.. oh it was destiny or somethin'.
Hey here's another idea! Why don't you trade the Naboo cruiser for a less fancy, but functional ship? Or maybe hire a transport? Pay them all the money you have now and then promise more when you get to Coruscant. Sound familiar? Someone who's like a-uh transport ship captain or a smuggler would have use for Republic credits, cuz they travel around the galaxy. Probably go to other space ports? Y'know.. makes sense.
But instead of using like the most common sense approach to everything, Qui-Gon concocts some kind of convoluted scheme so that we could get to the pod race. I honestly still don't understand it. Who was betting what? Then it gets more complicated later, when the bet changes.
So Anakin built the pod, but Watto didn't know that he built the pod so that - He already raced with Watto's pod. So then Anakin tells Qui- If Watto wins, Anakin tells Qui-Gon to pretend that it's his pod- And Watto says I'm gonna put up the entry fee if you - uh - let me use your po - If they win, the boy gets the - the money for the part, but if they lose, then Watto keeps the pod and the bo- Qui-Gon would have to pay back the republic credits, OH wait, no he bet, he bet the ship! He bet the ship and then if he loses the pod race then Watto gets the ship in exchange for putting up the entry fee. If Qui-Gon wins then he gets the prize mone- But then later on they throw the boy actually into the deal vs. the ship vs. the pod - Add the mom into the bet - If Watto wins... I don't know.
I lost everything! Whenever you gamble my friend, eventually you lose.
Number 10: Anakin Skywalker
No one likes little kids, especially ones that can't act. It's a kiss of death for your movie. The way they have it is that Anakin and his mom live in a comfy little hut, and if they leave there's a bomb in their brain. I think that's the worst plot device ever shoved into a movie for convenience.
What purpose did Shmee Skywalker serve to Watto? What she, she cleans her own dishes?
OH and then let's move on to this! What about the idea that Anakin is the one who built C-3PO? This is wrong for so many reasons.. I'm gonna list 3 of em. So the idea is that Anakin built C-3PO to help his mom around the house, but a protocol droid is typically used for etiquette and protocol. They're basically like robot diplomats and not really very handy technically. He says he's human/cyborg relations.. He doesn't say he cleans dishes! C-3PO is clumsy, awkward, and useless unless you need someone to translate a language. Plus his arms don't even bend. What the fuck is he supposed to help the mom with?! A vacuum would have been a better thing to build, or maybe a vibrator! Cuz it seems like the only action Shmee was getting was with the
force.
Also, if you're a little boy with a knack for building things with spare parts, then why would you build the exact same droid that seems to have been mass produced by a manufacturing plant somewhere? Wouldn't you build some kind of unique robot from your own imagination? And to add to that, Watto already owned a protocol droid.. It's layin there in the garbage dump. Why not just fix THAT one?
Oh we're still on this planet are we? So Qui-Gon manages to pull off the most convoluted bet ever and somehow wins everything except for Anakin's mother. Even at the end of the movie when they save the day and probably could get the cash to buy the mom from Watto, they don't go back for ten years.
Number 10: On to Planet Number 3. Is it time for death yet?
Welcome to Coruscant, home of the mid-air collision and boring scenes. So the Queen waits around for some kind of approval for something, to stop her people from dying. Why are they dying? I guess they're dying though. But I didn't SEE anyone die. In fact I haven't even seen ANY Naboo citizen at all.
As far as I know it's a city with 20 or so pilots, coupla bureaucrats and officials. Then the Queen gets impatient, she asks for a vote of no confidence, and then decides to go back to Naboo to fight a huge invasion force alone.
Then the Jedi Council tells Qui-Gon that he cannot start training Anakin, but he does it anyways. Obi Wan and Qui-Gon both talk about how Anakin is dangerous, and he's standing right there. Oh god, I hope he didn't hear that.. d- d'you think he heard that? So then George Lucas completely and utterly finally ruins Star Wars forever, by having Qui-Gon explain that the force is microscopic organisms.. Or that microscopic organisms in our cells tell us about the force.. Or something. This entire idea, and why this is in the movie, is so baffling to me that I cannot even wrap my mind around it.
It was never even explored or mentioned in the following two films.
Finally we come to the stupid ending where again nothing makes sense. After hours of boring, passionless, inhuman, robot-like, sleep inducing dialogue,
Jar Jar Binks screams in excitement that he's going home. This was actually the most shocking part of the whole movie, because at this point you forgot you were a human being. Oh... That's right, I'm still alive, and I'm watching a movie I guess. Wait.. DID SOMETHING HAPPEN???
Number 11: Please God make it stop. Make it end
Shazam! The silver space ship flies back to Naboo. Qui-Gon and Obi Wan go back as well for no season and then they bring the little kid to a war zone for no reason. But really what's curious about this is that no other Jedi come back with them, even though there might be a Sith there. There's much more important work for the other 500 Jedi's here. Meh, all the Jedi's will just sit here and see who gets elected Chancellor I guess. So then they start to approach the planet. Everyone waits until they arrive at Naboo to start discussing how they have no plans at all, and no idea what they're doing. All of a sudden the whole blockade is gone too, and there's just one ship. Where'd they go? That's convenient.
So then they make a plan. The Gungans act as robot bait so that the Queen can sneak into the palace and capture the Viceroy while the fighters attack the droid control ship. So what happens again when they capture the Viceroy? Nitpicking for a few minutes Then a bad guy shows up and he wants to fight the Jedi, cuz he wears black robes. I'm gunna get you, you guys are goin down! And the Jedi say Noooo, YURR goin down idiot! Oh, and then they go up from the palace to this room. What is this room? Is this in the palace? I mean I know George wanted the
Jedi's to fight in a cool place that's really Star Warsy. So, so what, this is like a Power Generator? What does it power, the universe? So you're expecting me to believe the people that built this technological wonder were dying without space supplies for 2 days?
So I have another question. If the Sith had been extinct for a Millennium, and only Jedi's use light sabers, then why are the Jedi's so darned experienced at sword fighting? So at the start of the film we see that Jedi's can run at a super-fast speed when the screenwriter doesn't know how to get them out of a situation where a powerful droid is shooting lasers at them, but we never see the Jedi's run fast again. Maybe there never really was a need to run fast again. (Obi Wan gets stopped by the barrier) Oh, yeah. That would have been a good time.
Wipe them out.. All of them. If the orders were to wipe them out, all of them, then why are they taking prisoners?
Number 12: Obi Wan Gets Mad and then I do
So we're back to the three guys we know nothing about, fighting each other in a scene we have no interest in. Their flawless choreography lacks all humanity and emotion, but then something happens. Qui-Gon dies, and Obi Wan is pissed. Hey, hey maybe this will finally get good? Maybe I'll get emotionally involved? You see Obi Wan is pumped! He really wants to kick this guy's ass, and then BAM! Oohh, that's right back to the highly choreographed fighting. It's like all this was planned out ahead of time. Hey remember when Luke Skywalker got really pissed and snapped when Vader was taunting him? Remember how worked up, and emotional he got? He just started wailing on Vader. There was no grace or complex choreography. He was just pounding him into submission, filled with rage. When you're worked up with emotion you begin to lose your composure and control. You expose your humanity a little. Obi Wan should have done that just a bit.. I guess that's the director's fault huh?
In Empire there's also very little complex choreography. Luke is just barely keeping up in his fight with Vader. Vader's just basically toying around with him. He could totally kick his ass at any moment, but he holds back. You see this was their first duel. There's a lot goin on between the two characters outside the fact that they're swinging swords at each other. There was even a lot more goin on at the end of Jedi. Luke was realizing he was kind of becoming his father and taking his place. The emperor was proving a point that hate and anger can be a powerful ally. You got things like temptation, anger, revelation, defiance, sacrifice, and redemption.
What's happening at the end of Phantom Menace? Three guys we don't care about are fighting each other over.. something. I gotta really stress this point that light saber duels have less to do with the fight itself, but more so with the internalization of the characters. So if you've ever said that the duel at the end of A New Hope was the worst one because it had bad fight choreography, and was like an old guy, an- and a guy in a mask who couldn't see what he was doing so they were just kinda like awkwardly hitting him with swords, well then I'm afraid you've missed the point ENTIRELY.
Now you might be thinking that the duel between Anakin and Obi Wan had some kind of depth to it because they were former friends. Now while it's true that this indeed had a little more going on than nothing, and.. even more nothing, this duel didn't need to be 45 minutes long. The ultimate point of everything was that Obi Wan defeats Anakin. Having them fight in the most ridiculous of places only to wind up on a tiny hill at the end was over-indulging. This fight could have lasted three minutes in one location and still had the same impact in the story. The whole thing ends up goin on so long, that it actually becomes boring, despite the amazing visual effects. The ultimate irony is that this fight between the same characters years later is much more interesting than this one. You see we need a deeper meaning to things. Without it none of it really matters, does it?
"Special effects are just tools. A means of telling a story. People tend to confuse them as an end to themselves. A special effect without a story is pretty boring thing." - George Lucas
You said it brother.. WAIT, YOU SAID THAT?!?!?!
Since the first Star Wars movie the endings have been getting more and more complicated, culminating with Episode 1. After that they toned it down cuz I think they realized how awful it was, but let me break it down here.
A New Hope: The story is flawlessly built up to the final conclusion. Stop the Death Star before it blows up the planet.
The Empire Strikes Back: All story points converge at Cloud City. Luke has his first confrontation with Vader, and Leia and friends try to escape.
Return of the Jedi: Luke confronts the Emperor, there's a battle on Endor to destroy the shield generator, and the Rebel fleet attacks the Death Star.
Now you got three stories goin on at once. Finally we get to The Phantom Menace: Gungans fight the droid army, Queen Amidamnun storms the palace to get the Viceroy, Anakin and Naboo pilots
attack the droid control ship, and Jedi's light saber fight in the feed power room. So now you got four. This was one of the major mistakes made in Episode 1. Ironically the simplest endings from the first two movies with the least locations and events are VASTLY more interesting because the plot is built up to them and we can focus on the one thing.
After the rough cut screening of the movie for the first time everyone in attendance looks just as baffled at the cluster fuck as we were. George admits to throwing too much out there. "I may have gone too far in a few places". Um.. Ya? The editor then attempts to explain pacing, and why four scenes with totally different emotional tones don't work well together. In a space of about 90 seconds you go from lamenting the death of a hero, to escape, to slightly comedic with Jar Jar, to Anakin returning.. But he kinda realizes he's wasting his time, so he stops. Rick McCullum is frozen in utter shock at how horrible the movie was. Internally he regrets not challenging Lucas on some of the things he was worried about. Lucas then realizes that he can't remove major segments of the movie in editing because they're intertwined. I've thought about this quite a bit, and the tricky part is you almost can't take any of those pieces out of there now, cuz each one kinda takes you to the next place, and you can't jump.. HEY IT'S TOO LATE NOW!
Later on after everybody's started drinking, Lucas attempts to explain his newly minted bowel movement as Bold.. and Extreme.. Stylistic. It's stylistically designed to be that way and you can't UNDO that, but we can diminish the effects of it. No one looks like they know what's going on, and they all look like they're about to start pointing fingers. But that's just my interpretation of this footage. I wasn't there.
So then we get to the ending. They burn Qui-Gon's body, they-they celebrate, Yod-Yoda's, there's an Indian chick there and um, there's another thing that looks like Yoda but it kinda looks like a midget. And then later on, or, or earlier or something Yoda and, and Obi Wan are talking in the castle and, and Yoda says Grave danger I fear in his training! I gave Qui-Gon my word. Ooohhhh.... You gave Qui-Gon your word. I suppose it's better to rely on that than rather the whole prediction of GRAVE DANGER.
So it seems like the Jedi Council reluctantly agrees to let Obi Wan train the boy for no real reason. Hey remember this is not like some kinda board room of company executives making a decision about apple sauce packaging. These are Jedi Masters whose entire existence is solely based on the force, feelings, premonition, and prophecy. When they ALL feel weirded out and predict grave danger, you'd think they of all people would follow their own instincts. But instead for no reason at all they allow the training. Agree with you the council does, your apprentice Skywalker will be. Hey maybe you shoulda just said NO! Yoda's supposed to be really wise right?
Number 14: The Aftermath
The Phantom Menace is now the greatest example of Cinematic Blue balls in the history of motion pictures, and I ain't talkin about the kind the Gungas had. Never again will anything be more wildly anticipated, or a bigger disappointment.
So who dropped the ball?!?! Well.. I guess you could say it was everyone involved in the production. Mainly the producers and those higher up on the food chain. Sure it's easy to blame George for the script and doing everything wrong, but those people who didn't challenge Lucas on some of the questionable ideas, they ALSO carry some blame. To quote Gary Kurtz, "I think one of the problems.. is the fact that he (Lucas) doesn't have more people around him who really challenge him." You can really see this in the Behind the Scenes videos. People look scared around George. They laugh at his bad jokes. When he comes into a room there's like silence, and fear, and terror. Every so often you'll catch some looks of confusion and mistrust.
You gotta wonder what some of these people were thinking. Now again I must stress I wasn't there, and I can't pretend to know all the goings on behind the scenes, but it all seems pretty obvious if you think about it.
Lucas has always been a rogue film maker who hated the studio system. He always seemed to want total control on his projects, which I can understand.
And while a director should have control on the project, film making should also be a collaborative process. A second screen writer can help focus the story and the dialogue. Actors are creative people too! They can provide valuable insight on the characters, and a lot of really good ideas. And a good executive producer can be the voice of reason when things start to get out of hand. I think all of this can be summed up from the expression Art from Adversity.
The original Star Wars was plagued with problems. Nothing worked right, things were rushed I guess, but it ended up bein a great movie. When you can make a movie entirely in a computer, and then shoot everything against a blue screen in some kind of sterile laboratory, well some of the magic is lost. It ends up all looking so clean and sterile, and it lacks humanity. It lacks grit.
The Phantom Menace also makes you wonder.. with total control on every aspect of the film from the writing, to directing, to casting, etc. THIS was the result?!?! Then when you hear tales about how Luke was supposed to be a 65 year old man with a robot head, Han Solo was supposed to be like a frog, and C-3PO was like a slimy, used car salesman type you have to just wonder WHAT IF? What if Lucas had the kinda control back then he has today? Now I ain't gonna say much more here. I don't know all the facts.
Thanks to everyone who enjoyed the read as much as I did writing it out while watching our favourite critic in action. Episode 2 will be coming soon!
![]](images/rt_edge3.gif){kind=small}
![[XML]](images/rssblue.gif){kind=small}
![[P]](images/print3.gif){kind=small}
