[Otal Nimrodi]

Yes. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "which one was number 20 again?"

Well, I'll remind you.

Entertainment Weekly As seen in Entertainment Weekly! No really!

Written by: Chefelf
Edited by: Jacques

Ep. I
TPM |
| Ep. II
AOTC |
| Ep. III
ROTS |
| Ep. IV
ANH |
| Ep. V
ESB |
| Ep. VI
ROTJ |
| Holiday
Special
<<- Episode III Teaser Review! ->>

Reasons 11-20

Reason #11
Jar Jar Louganis
To further test your suspension of disbelief, Jar Jar makes this dive into the water where he jumps about twenty feet in the air and then flips five times before hitting the water. Was that necessary? Instead of letting you forgive him for the six or seven things he'd done in his first minute into the movie they immediately hit you with another reason why he is the worst.

Reason #12
The Quickest Route
Boss Nass (who is getting off easy for some reason) tells the Jedi and Jar Jar that the quickest way to reach the Naboo is through the planet's core. Okay. I am by no means a geologist. I can't tell the difference between Igneous or Sedimentary rock. However, one thing I do know is that you can't just traipse through a planet's core... for any reason. Even if it is the quickest route (which I find highly doubtful) I think that the risks (i.e. certain death) are far to great to undertake the voyage.

Reason #13
A Fish Tries to Eat Them
I'm pretty sure fish don't eat metal.

Reason #14
"There's always a bigger fish."
A bigger fish eats the fish that was trying to eat them. Qui-Gon should be wiser than this. Can't he see the fault in his logic? How can there always be a bigger fish? I think a more accurate line would be: "There's usually a bigger fish." It's a lot like God making a boulder so heavy that he couldn't lift it. I think Qui-Gon's statement will one day be the focus of a great deal of University philosophical debate.

Reason #15
Big Fish
The fish that eats the enormous fish is really friggin' big. It's tough to say exactly how big but I would say that it was at least 100 feet. If there are all these giant fish lurking in the waters right by the Gungans' city then why is their city still standing? Lets say that there were a couple hundred Tyrannosaurs Rexes living outside of Paris. Instead of being regular Tyrannosaurs Rexes, these particular dinosaurs ranged from regular size to five or six times their normal size. I would be willing to bet that Paris would be a much different city today although Le Centre de Georges Pompideau would probably still look the same.

Reason #16
Droid Armies
How much do you think it costs to make an army out of artificially intelligent and independent droids? I wager that the cost would be somewhere between fucking expensive and fucking astronomical. The effects of the droids were pretty cool. I find the special effects on non-living creatures far less distracting, but this isn't about effects unfortunately for the validity of Episode I. I did a search for "military robotics" on Google and came up with a site that offered information. To subscribe to their bi-weekly military robotics newsletter is $375 a year. That is just for a newsletter/catalog to look at some pretty basic military robotics. I highly doubt that any of these robots have artificial intelligence. The droids in Episode I are unbelievably sophisticated with the ability to fabricate lies and perform a myriad of complex dexterous actions. I think even in a society as advanced as the one we are presented with in Episode I it would be a hell of a lot cheaper and easier to get a bunch of dumb guys with guns.

Reason #17
Why even use a lightsaber?
Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are quick to whip out lightsabers when things start going bad. One thing that I couldn't help but notice during the course of this movie was that every so often they would do that thing where they extend a hand and the enemy would go flying backwards. That is friggin' cool. Why even use a lightsaber when that Jedi “push” move is so much cooler? Maybe it's the fact that they only use it every twentieth time or so that makes it so cool, but I am a big fan. Just about the only thing I look forward to in Episode II (besides another excuse to see Natalie Portman on the big screen) is the chance that we'll see a lot more of the force-push. Maybe Anakin will use it to pick fights with people and that is what turns him to the dark side.

Reason #18
The hyperdrive is leaking
The reason that they have to land on Tatooine is because "the hyperdrive is leaking." Leaking what? I've never really considered it but I suppose that a hyperdrive could contain something that would leak. But why put a hyperdrive in a part of the ship where it is susceptible to damage? If I were a ship designer I would think of putting the hyperdrive somewhere near the center of the ship so by the time it was damaged you would stand very little chance of survival anyway. As we are all well aware, they didn't seem to learn this lesson by the time Episodes IV-VI rolled around.

Reason #19
Darth Maul's Introduction
At one point Darth Sidious is speaking with the Viceroy. He then announces his apprentice, Darth Maul. Darth Maul then steps into range of the holographic transmitter to mug for the camera. I must say that as cool as every eight year old thinks Darth Maul is, I find him to be one of the greater flaws of the movie. Where Jar Jar fails in comic entertainment, Darth Maul succeeds. Look at him, he's just a funny looking dude! He looks like he could be a member of KISS. If KISS hadn't stopped wearing the makeup I bet Bruce Kulick would have worn makeup just like this. And by the way, Darth Maul? That's a pathetic name for a Sith. Why did they break the tradition of naming Darth's after words that begin with the letters in? inVader, inSidious. I would be happier if his name were something like Darth Truder, Darth Cendiary or more appropriately Darth Ane.

Reason #20
R2-D2's Big Day!
The fact that all of these characters just happen to board a ship with R2-D2 is lamer than lame. The fact that R2-D2 saves the day by fixing the shield connection (Again, why do they line these damn ships with the most important components?) is lame. You know when you have to answer the question: "What was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you?" Well my answer is as follows.

In Star Wars: Episode I there is a scene where R2-D2 saves the day. After he saves the day Queen Amidala asks one of her lackeys to read the number off the droid. The man says "R2.. D2, your highness." Then Queen Amidala says and I quote: "Padme, clean this droid up. It deserved our gratitude." I have never been so embarrassed in all my life.

It's true. I gasped in horror as this scene unfolded before my very eyes. I remember slouching down in my seat in the theater, my face must have been glowing red. The words of Joseph Conrad ringing in my head. The horror. The horror.

There are many flaws with the scene. Firstly, if this had been any other droid they wouldn't have had a gay ass little award ceremony for it. Secondly, the Queen's decoy is having Padme (actually Queen Amidala in this very scene) scrub down the droid. Thirdly, we saw earlier in the movie that droids receive very poor treatment from humans. Earlier, on the Viceroy's ship, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan don't even look at a droid that has served them drinks let alone thank the droid. Just because the droid's intelligence is artificial is no reason to treat it so poorly.

The movie could have benefited so much from leaving out this scene and my most embarrassing moment could revert to the time the high school football team took off my pants and gave be a spanking in the school cafeteria.

Now. I was reading this, and I tend to try to defend things on instinct. Remembering this scene, there is no defense for it. The way it was played, and the placement in the movie, lead to it being one of the most atrocious scenes.


I think I know how to make it not suck.

But it would require a lot of work.

For one, the actors wouldn't play it seriously. They'd have to be doing it almost as a joke. Not out of a sincere desire to reward R2 for his efforts, but more because... Well, their planet has been taken over. They narrowly escaped with their lives. Life is pretty grim. They need to find a way to lighten up, because after all, this is WAR. Stress leads to deaths.

As the scene was, the characters seemed to be motivated by "This droid did a great job"

But if they were motivated by something more like "Wouldn't it be great if we gave this droid a medal?" "Yeah, man, you should totally do that."

That might have made the scene good. Like the string of jokes and puns at the end of the movie 1776.

[civilian_number_two]

Remember the bit at the very end of STAR WARS, where Luke asks a tech to do a good job of fixing his droid R2D2 because "me and this droid have been through a lot together" (probably paraphrased)? THAT is how you do a thing like that. You show the droid through the entire movie, taking active roles in a lot of the scenes, before you show a human treating it like, at best, a sentient companion or, at worst, a well-loved gadget that one isn't ready to part with quite yet.

This scene, as Chef says, was horrible, and one of many reasons I haven't watched any other Lucas offerings since. It was no more than a desperate shot at nostalgia, like the bit in CONAN THE DESTROYER where Conan meets the camel he punched in the first film and it's now retarded. Cause that was like, holy fucking shit. You know what, Lucas? People came to the movie out of nostalgia! You don't need to reintroduce the droids in overt and desperate ways! Obi-Wan's first fucking line of dialogue doesn't have to be the same quote from 2001 that you used in all the other movies in the series! You don't have to introduce Greedo as a child or insert Jabba the Hut and Boba Fett into every scene! Take your time, have the patience of an author, introduce characters only when appropriate, and folks will meet you way more than halfway. They were nostalgic coming in; you don't have to force it on them.

So Otal, respectfully I disagree. There was no real way to make that particular scene not suck. It was just pointless. The involvement of the droids in the first trilogy was central, and so it should have been in this series, yes. But their roles - astromech for the queen, ok, protocol droid for a slave on Tatooine who happens to be Luke's paternal grandmother WTF? - were just ill-conceived and terrible. The medal sequence is a symptom of an illness that set in on Lucas sometime during the final drafting of JEDI. And as I understand it, it only progressed through the rest of the trilogy until is consumed him utterly.

[Chefelf]

It was during a huge tragedy too. It would be like if they took some time about an hour after Pearl Harbor to give a medal to shovel.

[Vesuvius]

It was during a huge tragedy too. It would be like if they took some time about an hour after Pearl Harbor to give a medal to shovel.

Crap man, I almost spit up over this! Nice.

[Toru-chan]

It was during a huge tragedy too. It would be like if they took some time about an hour after Pearl Harbor to give a medal to shovel.

I LOLed!

[Hoth]

So Otal, respectfully I disagree. There was no real way to make that particular scene not suck. It was just pointless.

Could not agree more. I agreed with Chefelf the first time I read "reasons" that this was the worst scene in the prequels. The only scene I would think compares in it's atrociousness is the scene where Qui-Gon teaches Anakin (and all of us apparently) about "midichlorians". I wanted to cover my ears during that scene like a father would try to cover his children's ears when something is being said in front of them that's inappropriate, because I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Likewise I wanted to close my eyes during "20" because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was just ridiculous and the flaws with it are really too many to mention in one post. If I was an instructor in some school of cinema somewhere, this scene would be my first and primary example of how to lose an intelligent audience.

I will add something to this though, it wasn't just that scene that was pointless, it was the whole movie...and the two that followed.

This post has been edited by Hoth: 10 January 2009 - 03:58 AM

[Gobbler]

Sorry to burst in here.

It was no more than a desperate shot at nostalgia, like the bit in CONAN THE DESTROYER where Conan meets the camel he punched in the first film and it's now retarded.

This very scene always pierces my heart, and I really don't know why, seeing as those two movies were more like fast food to being with.

But damn, they replaced Subotai with Malak as Conan's sidekick in the second movie - how the heck was he able to accurately identify that camel?

[Toru-chan]

Sad thing about the whole Conan saga: The original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard were mostly brilliant (a few mediocre ones he thumped out to meet deadlines are in there - but the rest are brilliant). So were the first half of Conan novels by Robert Jordan (the second half were a rehash of the first - same characters started reappearing in recycled plotlines, but the first half are excellent).

But those De Laurentis movies so missed the mark. They weren't Conan. And there have been so many authors that have hopped on the Conan bandwagon who have churned out substandard crap: Sprague de Camp and Rolland Green I speak of you. Worse, that talentless hack Sprague de Camp made an attempt to seize the Conan IP outright. For what? All that talentless hack did was crap on the franchise. His Conan novels are extremely poorly written. They're just sh*t storytelling.

In the UK and Australia Conan is now in the public domain. In the US I don't know. Congress frequently rewrites the laws at the request of political donors: http://query.nytimes...752C0A9659C8B63

Anyway, if you want to see Conan at his best check out the Robert Jordan novels and the original Robert E. Howard stories which have been re-released. Don't waste your time reading anything else and the De Laurentis movies are to Conan what the Star Wars PT is to the OT.

http://en.wikipedia....n_the_Barbarian

Sorry to burst in here. This very scene always pierces my heart, and I really don't know why, seeing as those two movies were more like fast food to being with. But damn, they replaced Subotai with Malak as Conan's sidekick in the second movie - how the heck was he able to accurately identify that camel?