[barend]

The PT isn't it's own work, it does fit with the OT. Sure there are a lot of inconsistencies, but there are many how shall I put it, "homage scenes" that if you have seen the OT make you think back to those scenes. One example is the fight between Count Dooku and Anikin in AOTC, it's very similar to Luke and Vader's fight in ROTJ. Things like that, while some think are cheesy, I think are rather cool. It's a parallel. Sort of a "History repeats itself" kind of thing. Instead of ripping apart every nuance of every film if you just looked at all six of them as the "Big Picture" then you'd start to be able to pick things apart not cynically, but positively.

scary movie made me think of several movies but i don't think it's part of the cannon of any of those...

[Darth Player]

If legendary "B" Movie filmmaker Ed Wood had access to CGI, he wouldn't have been able to pull of something as laughably bad as TPM. Virtually every frame of it can be dissected for the sheer stupidity of it all. I don't think we all with our combined talents managed to get to the heart of the matter as to why the PT sucks the way it does, but i believe we're at the cutting edge of finding an answer one day soon. For the time being, I'm sticking to the notion that wen GL wrote the OT, he identified himself with Luke, whereas when he wrote the PT, he was the unmasked Vader breathing his last breaths on the soon to be blown up Death Star II.

[Lord Aquaman]

Phantom Menace is as bad as it gets. It redefined the benchmark for bad movies.

[miladyblue]

Unless there was a superior movie out there, also called "Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace" that none of us have ever heard of, I would have to say the answer to the question posed by this thread is a resounding "YES!!"

[georgelucas4greedo]

I hated it the first time I saw it. I remember watching the trailer and waiting forever for it to download off my dial up internet. I thought it was going to be amazing. Then it started...and those stupid Asian stereotype aliens ruined it for me. Star Wars is not supposed to have aliens as enemies thats so fricking cliche. Give me human on human war!

Anyway, when I watched it again, less seriously, I thought it was mediocre.

[Despondent]

Oh, parts of it were cringe worthy. I gave it a chance out of nostalgia I suppose. Then I faced reality.

Still, It was light years better than that Clones crap. I hate sand. Yippee!

[azerty]

So you found Jar Jar annoying....

Well that's unusual. Most people find him interesting and amusing. You must be extra perceptive to be able to pick up on his irritating little nuances. Or possibly you found all the Frog people inferior, (but not for any sterotypical racialistic reasons of course.)

Yeah, fuck the lot of them! And how could Amidala have tried to integrate them into Naboobian society, somehow pretending that they were equal to the humans in some way? What was she thinking? They were all obviously inferior. She should have just wiped the whole lot of the greasy bastards out, starting with that fat slobbering one. Death to anyone classified outside the superior genetic lines of the beautiful Naboobian people. The fat ones particularly. Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!

(Yes, I stole that last quote. How clever of you to spot it. Here are some more)

http://www.pbs.org/w...ure/quotes.html

Whose fault is it that she finally took notice of the frog men? Qui Gonn! He started it all. That's why we hate him too.

Qui Gonn, unlike all of us, (and every other character in the film by the way), DID find some value in the worthless Jar Jar. Qui Gonn taught Amidala and the rest of the humans toleration, empathy, and multicuturalism. God damn! Qui Gonn probably approved of gay marriage, a woman's right to choose, free speech, universal health plans, and recycling. He even talked to that slave woman Shmi as if she was his equal too? What's up with that - she was a SLAVE for christ sake! That's not the Jedi way!

Another quote from a famous Jedi about the Jedi way...

"In our eyes, the boy of the future must be slim and slender, as fast as a greyhound, tough as leather and hard as Krupp steel. My program for educating youth is hard. Weakness must be hammered away. In my castles of the Jedi Order a youth will grow up before which the world will tremble. There must be nothing weak and gentle about it. The free, splendid beast of prey must once again flash from its eyes...That is how I will eradicate thousands of years of human domestication...That is how I will create the Jedi Order."

You recognize it immediately, naturally...


It wan't just that which ruined the movie of course. What about the midichlorians? I really thought that I was a Jedi Knight, and could feel the force. I thought I had secret Jedi powers, too. Never got anything to move by itself of course, but I probably could have if I had tried hard enough. But now my delusions are SMASHED! Smashed to pieces by GEORGE LUCAS! I have no midichlorians so I cannot really be a Jedi knight. And that fat kid in the school movie - I guess he wasn't a Jedi either.

My life is ruined, and it is all due to that movie. Why couldn't it have been more like Return of the Jedi, with its amusing muppets in Jabba's palace, those clever Ewoks, and Chewie doing the crazy tarzan yell? Solo trying to blow out the torches when he is being cooked for dinner, and droids burning the feet of other droids and blowing steam out of convenient holes their toes? Why, George, why did you have to go silly on us and give us Qui Gonn when we could have had nore of that chap with the melted face who sat next to Lando in the Falcon and giggled like a retard? Why!!!!

[georgelucas4greedo]

Wow! I love it. This maybe one of my favorite posts ever!

[I shot first]

Wow Azerty, what a rant. You don't really believe all that bull do you, I hope not. Do you like the movie? I can't even tell. I didn't because it was really bad. I wanted a Star Wars movie, with the Star Wars charachters to tell the stary Obi Wan told Luke Skywalker. When it was about Qui Gon and a 8 year old i knew it wasn't going to be any good. I don't even understand what your talking about.

[barend]

vagina cheeks laughed like a retard?

[Casual Fan]

Azerty had a great post.

No, it wasn't that bad. Expectations were sky high because people were expecting another Star Wars (A New Hope). And TPM could never be that, because when ANH came out, there were no other Star Wars movies. No movie could live up to that expectation, and to make things worse, Lucas deliberately started things off slow, with what was basically a children's story.

Still, as an opening to the prequels it was weak. It wasn't disasterous. If Lucas had dropped the midichlorian thing (just not mentioned it, ever again), found a way to kill Jar-Jar in the next movie, and developed the Republic more -like giving it an actual army, it would have made a very slow start to the prequels but not done that much damage. Anakin was a little too cute, the glimpses of the jedi we got, other than Qui Gonn, weren't that impressive, the plot was a mess, but at least there was a plot and at the end of the movie we were left with Anakin beginning his training, and the Sith lurking around the corner somewhere. It was AOTC that killed the prequel concept.

As a standalone movie, TPM is basically a "B" sci fi movie, a good movie to show to kids in summer camp or on cable at 3 AM, not quite MST3K material because of Liam Neeson's performance and because of Darth Maul. If you are young and have not seen the OT, and come in with no expectations, I don't find it too surprising that you'd like TPM.

Also, this was a great line: "These two trilogies DO NOT nor were EVER MEANT (in my opinion) to fit together! "

I think this really was Lucas' intention. Which is fine, except DON'T USE CHARACTERS NAMED OBI WAN, OR OWEN, OR PRETEND ONE CHARACTER BECOMES DARTH VADER. But I do view the prequels as a completely difference sci fi/ fantasy series from Star Wars, there are too many inconsistencies otherwise. But if the advertising didn't imply that these movies had something to do with Star Wars, no one would watch them. Lucas should sue the producer for copyright infringement.

[darth_paul]

No, it wasn't that bad. Expectations were sky high because people were expecting another Star Wars (A New Hope). And TPM could never be that, because when ANH came out, there were no other Star Wars movies. No movie could live up to that expectation, and to make things worse, Lucas deliberately started things off slow, with what was basically a children's story.

Exactly, has anyone ever thought that quite possibly Lucas knew this all along? That's the whole reason that he started in the middle of the story. He knew that the begining of the story lacked and that the entire 6-part saga would have never gotten off the ground if he started with Phantom Menace back in '77. Everyone would have hated it and it would have bombed and that would have been the end of Star Wars. The other 5 movies would have never been made. So, before you sell 'ol George too short, just remember that he did the right thing producing the movies in the order that he did. He had the amazing forsight to open with his best material first. Besides, look at other tales such as Lord of the Rings for comparison. Isn't Return of the King aguably the best of the trilogy? The story starts out rather weak and then builds up to the best stuff at the end. Same is true here with Star Wars.

[georgelucas4greedo]

You honestly believe that Lucas had all six movies planned out, despite the inconsistencies?

[miladyblue]

You honestly believe that Lucas had all six movies planned out, despite the inconsistencies?

Personally, I don't think so. Of course, I am coming from another perspective. I myself am a writer, despite never actually having published anything, and several people I know are writers, including one friend who has managed to produce a movie.

The writing process, at least how it works for the rest of the world, if not GL, is that one comes up with the characters, the story and situations they are in, and the writer comes up with how the characters and everything fit into the story, much like an outline - i.e. Character A falls in love with Character B, but Character C, the villain, captures A, and B has to rescue A. Along the way, B decides to hire D, E, and F, and B's life is complicated by a strong attraction to E, while F might actually be working for C. The final confrontation between B and C for A's freedom comes up, and B is surprised to learn that A is now sympathetic to C's cause, and now B has to figure out how to win A back over to the "right" side.

It is while in this stage the author can tweak the thing, and change what happens, change character names, and even drop characters that add nothing to the plot, or work to strengthen the relationships, or the tensions between the heroes and villains. There are also plot twists that can be made, as in the example above, that F is actually an undercover agent, trying to take down C's criminal enterprise and D is a traitor.

That is a pretty simplified view of the process. I have had trouble in the past with villains that were far too powerful, so I would have to work on some sort of vulnerability for the hero to exploit, or characters who were too boring, and have to spice them up.

The point is, in the outline/plotting phase, if something is changed make sure that any inconsistencies are dealt with! If it is established that B is actually the son of F, make sure that IF that known fact changes, such as B's mother lied to F about B's paternity, it is done so in a consistent and interesting fashion. Or, if the author decides to eliminate a character from the story, such as a problem with too many characters, then the now-missing character's function does not upset the story. Such as, "Who the hell is going to pilot the ship now, since I did away with Character G?"

Someone much wiser than I (and I wish I could remember the name of that someone!) once said, "Of COURSE truth is stranger than fiction, fiction actually has to make sense!"

[mireaux7]

From Darth Newmacer's point of view (and yes,..we all know this saga is based on point of views)
since he has done something the majority of fans has not,..which is,..saw TPM first, then the OT,..he has formed his intial opinion of the saga based on the EP:I

In most cases, first impressions of anything form the outcome for all other decisions to be based off of,.its what sets the standard, for future things to be judged by.

There may even be those individuals, young and old, who have actually seen the saga in numerical order: TPM,AOTC,ROTS,ANH,ESB,ROTJ. If such individuals exist, its my deepest hope they saw the OT in its unaltered format.