Chefelf.com Night Life: The worst film ever - Chefelf.com Night Life

Hi Chefelf and citizens of his realm.

I saw Episode 1 when it first come out and was very disappointed in it as a Star Wars movie. Then the other night it was on tv and I thought I should watch it to see if it really was as bad as I remembered it. And… yes. Yuk, was it bad. The next day i went on the Internet and found your 78 reasons to hate it and I have pretty much laughed ever since. Great site! Thank you for sharing it. I’m sorry if I’m now repeating what other people have already said here. You might find this a boring enumeration but I just had to get my reasons to hate it out of my system.

Beginning at the beginning: the very first conversation, between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan has me in agony. I remembered from the first viewing that it was a disappointment, but it’s much more embarrassing this time around. Like you’ve pointed out, Chefelf, the Jedi are such know-it-all jerks. ”Keep your thoughts on the here and now”. Iiiiich! Could they be just a little more obvious? The entire conversation just screams ”Look at these big guys, they are wise and good. They have a loving master-apprentice relationship. They discuss the Force at every moment of their life. They are totally into their thing”. Makes me wanna puke. Give me a Luke or a Han, who’re both realistically non-perfect and good.

Ah! Such a relief – the camera switches to the lizards in nuns’ headdresses. The ”Vice-Roy’s” pessimistic sidekick actually has me in stitches.”It won’t be enough.” ”We should not have made this barGAIN”. He’s as depressed as Eeyoore in Winnie the Pooh and is almost as cute and ridiculous. I don’t think we’re supposed to find him funny, but I do. And the Emperor is not half bad, I like his string of abuses. But he directs them to the wrong lizard.

That moment seems to have been the end of the things I enjoyed. Queen Amidala is sheer pain – her voice, her lines, her intonation. She is more monotonous than the chanting monks in The Holy Grail. It’s difficult to determine whether Natalie Portman (or is it the decoy speaking at this time of the film?) is a terrible actress or if she just had terrible material to work with. Mostly I feel that this doesn’t matter. If people accept working with such an awful script they pretty much deserve having its shit rub off on them.

Speaking of Amidala, her outrageous clothes really annoy me. They were strangely absent from your lists of things to hate! They’re trying to depict Amidala as a good ruler, right? Not as someone who’d squander the entire planet budget on outfits. But maybe Naboo (what a stupid name – no sentient beings could name their home planet anything half so childish) is just mind-bogglingly rich and everyone goes around like this. Not that we’d know, since we hardly get to see anyone else on the entire planet. There is a scene when she’s in something red, looking out at the army invading her town, and in the scene one second later she’s in something enormous and black. Did the droids allow her to go change before prrrrrrocessing her? Stupid. Of course it’s always like this in films that women have to change clothes in every scene whereas men can muck around in the same stuff all the time - compare for instance Arwen and Aragorn - but this film just takes it too far even for Hollywood standards. I hate her outfits and they make me hate her. One of the many nice things about the original trilogy is that Leia does muck around like one of the guys, getting her hands dirty just like them and never sneaks off to change costumes at weird times. Made the danger she was in and her dedication to the cause seem real.

The worst part of all the worst parts in this film is the dialogue. It never goes anywhere, just chews on and on, using phrases that could have been put together by a Star Wars Conversation Randomiser. Dialogue is supposed to bring out the characters and their idiosyncracies and to forward the action! It does none of these here. So I have no idea why gigantic ships suddenly descend on a lush planet felling a lot of trees. I don’t understand why the Jedi are so keen to go to Gungan city. Their plan was to warn the Naboo and send messages to the Senate, right? Do they need to take cover? The droid army doesn’t seem like much of a threat. Are they keen on meeting new people? Jar-Jar specifically says something to the effect that they won’t be welcome there, so why do they take the risk? Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Though I have to say that the sight and music as they swim towards the city are both rather beautiful.

I actually turned off the film when they had got as far as Tatooine. One of the things I remember very clearly from my first watching was how mind-killingly boring Anakin’s race was and I didn’t want to go through that again. Also I felt that so far I hadn’t been the least bit apprehensive about anything. There was no suspense, no drama, no story, no people you care about, basically just technicolor, so I didn’t feel I missed anything by going to sleep instead.

Just some random complaints I can’t resist bitching about as well…

The best part was the intro music before the ridiculous intro text came up. That score is amazing and always puts a smile on my face and my whole self in fairytale-mood. Except this time I was cruelly snatched out of it within ten seconds. Lucas should have copyrighted his special introduction ploy to save it from himself.

I like politics and don’t mind it being a big part in this film which is (supposed to be) about the fall of a nation and a way of life. But the intro text makes no sense. How could blocking off tiny Naboo solve a problem of taxation of trade routs? Is it the Naboo Queen’s wardrobe that keeps the industry of the whole galaxy in business? (could be the case)

There is no people on Naboo. It’s completely unpopulated apart from a few pilots and palace workers.

I agree with everything Chefelf has said about them going through the plaaaaanet core. Absolutely ridiculous. AND it would only be the closest way to the Naboo capital (or whatever that dead city is) if it was on pretty much the other side of the planet from the Gungans. Why would the invasion army land so far away from their target? There will be a lot of forest to demolish for them. And if they are on the other side of the planet, how come the droid army is still in the capital before the ”bongo”? Stupid.

Kinda interesting that Anakin will need to undergo complete amnesia when becoming Darth Vader, so as to be ignorant later on that Tatooine is a regular Skywalker haunt and a good place to look for any hidden Skywalker offspring. At the same time he’ll remember that he has a son so it’s a very selective amnesia. I wonder if they will address this in the third film or just skip it. Probably skip it.

Thanks for reading this far! I enjoyed writing this much more than watching the stuff that made me do it. Is that how it is for all of you here?

/Marri

You have to remember that Anakin did not know that Amidala Waspreganant. Obi-Wan says this in the ROTJ original script BTW. So he is not looking for Luke Skywalker to begin with since he doesn't know he even exists.

A better argument is why didn't Vader look for Obi-Wan on Tatooine. Probably because there has never been any connection between Obi-Wan and the planet to begin with. Obi-Wan could easily be on Naboo as much as he could be on tatooine. Tatooine is a far away place and with it's sandy dessert terrain it is probably easier for a single person to hind. I would venture that Vader probably did look for Obi-Wan on Tatooine but the stormtroopers searches probably prooved fruitless.

You're other arguments are right on, though. I found Amidala's wardrobe to be as distracting. It was like watching a female host on Oscar's Night. :yuck:

For me the score for the PT has been disappointing in that it is basically a retread of previous themes. There are no great distinctive themes like Luke and leia, the Ewok Parade or Yoda's theme. It also didn't help that the ear-shattering explosions and non-stop inane dialogue drown out much of the music. This is not one of John Williams best efforts, but i give him a pass since he is such an amazing composer of music for film. It is just another disappointment for the PT. Has anyone out there purchased the soundtracks for TPM or AOTC? What did you think?

Actually, according to the Return of the Jedi novelization, Owen Lars is Obi-Wan's brother.

This of course shows that Lucas can't even be bothered to keep up with his own storyline.

Yeah I bought them, and I actually have to completely disagree with you on this one. The scores of the PT are the only things that haven't been disappointing. In my opinion, as far as complexity and pure quality of the score, they are better than the scores of the OT. Anakin's theme is an innocent, tragic theme (with overtones of the Imperial March), duel of the fates is grand fight music (unfortunately the fight couldn't live up to the music), the podrace track is full of tension and excitement (managing more than the scene itself), Qui-Gon's Noble End is heart-wrenching (while in the movie it was a cheap move by Maul), Funeral For a Jedi is truly sad, and perfect music for a funeral like what they showed, and the track before that (forget what it was called), is also very understated and cool with overtones of Yoda's theme and a very eerie 10 or so notes of the Imperial March. Not to mention the flag parade which is a magnificent theme and the droid battle, also great action music.

Episode II's score is great as well. The Love Theme (Across the Stars) is a beautiful and tragic track, probably the most beautiful (hate to sound corny here) thing Williams has written. The Coruscant chase theme is a bit repetitive, but still very interesting and very different from his usual style of music. Yoda and the Younglings is great of course because it has Yoda's theme , as well as a nice rendition of the Force theme and Across the Stars. The picnic music is nice enough to serve the scene's purposes, and the Anakin-Amidala scene (the one with We could keep it a secret) has a very dark version of the Love Theme that, listened to on its own and not with horrible dialogue, is really cool. Both Jango Fett themes are action-packed, but from Track 10 on it gets really, really cool. Return to Tatooine has a truly stirring reprisal of the Force Theme (intentionally reminiscent of Binary Sunset), as well as Duel of the Fates (which I think is used better as chase or riding music than fight music, but that's just me). The Tusken Camp begins tragically with Shmi dying, and then harkens back to the Psycho theme, then going into the Imperial March, and then finally having Anakin bring the body back with really gut-wrenching music that makes you feel his sorrow more than Hayden's acting can. Love Pledge and The Arena has a shorter rendition of Across the Stars leading into the action-packed Arena sequence (though in the movie much of it was music from Episode I), and then goes into the Force Theme at the end and an homage to the theme from "Here They Come", or "Ben Kenobi's Death", though in a much less grand and more dark sense. It finally ends with the most powerful rendition of Imperial March in all 5 movies, and goes into Across the Stars, ending perfectly showing that there is more to come and also tying into the Star Wars theme perfectly, the best tie-in since the original Star Wars. The credits is basically just Across the Stars, though it ends with Anakin's theme and then of course the great dark overtones of the Imperial March mixed with Across the Stars.

So yeah, the music was not disappointing, and I think is some of Williams best work, if not his best work. Sorry for the long-winded post though.

This post has been edited by Vwing: 09 March 2004 - 03:45 PM

Marri,

Welcome to the forum! I always love hearing from people who agree with everything I say.

Please register your username and stick around! There's always plenty of great SW talk going on here.

Also get an avatar hi

Aha. Thanks for clearing up my confusion. Sorry, Lucas - I shouldn't have doubted you!

It's been a while since I saw the originals now. I remember the Emperor saying to Vader "The son of Skywalker must not be a Jedi" so I assumed they both knew. Excuse a newbie question: when did Vader find out? Did he work it out for himself after feeling how strong the force was with Luke in the end of the first film?

Glad I'm not the only one freaking out on the costumes! Overall I like the grey and messy clothes and exteriors of the OT much better than the colourfest of PM. But I suppose it's supposed to prove a point that life was happier and more colourful before the fall of the Republic.

I didn't find the score to be a problem. The only themes I noticed were the ones I liked (beginning and Gungan city). But how could it be noticed in the endless stream of horrible things screaming to be noticed in this film?

The above was my post. I don't know why it said "guest". I'm having some problems registering.

It is believed that Vader found out about Luke when he noticed that the individual that destroyed the Death Star was strong with the force. He probably sent spies throught the galazy to find the name of this rebel pilot. After learning his name, Vader becomes obsessesed with finding him {as mentioned in the scrolling preamble at the beginning ESB} The empire doesn't tell him he knows about Luke until he contacts Vader in ESB {the "we have a new enemy.." speech} It is insinuated that vader may have been trying to shield Luke's identity to the Emperor {his struggle with the dark side?"

You should watch more of the OT, marra? For many of us SW fans it is our only solace in the darkness that has become the current trilogy.

Email or PM me if you're having trouble registering.

My email is nate@lanceandeskimo.com. I can pre-register you if you are having problems.