Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

[lesbiassparrow]

Or 'It's Not Nearly as Horrible as I Remember It.' I have long thought of this as one of the worst films ever so my change of mind is quite surprising to me.



The Jedi are still wankers. Even more wankery than I remembered. And Yoda is the Prince of Wankers (I have never gotten over him telling Anakin not to be worried about people dying and then heading off to find out the secret of immortality in Revenge of the Sith): perhaps if Anakin’s first experience of the Jedi Council wasn’t as a bunch of old men who disregarded his fear for his mother and told him he was too old to be trained, then he might not have turned out to distrust and despise them. The problem is that you can't really see them as any sort of diplomats, except for the chance that they can screw with your mind and you probably find yourself signing over your bank account to them without blinking. This is probably how they built that giant temple.

Qui-Gon is, however, all sorts of wonderful. He gambles! He cheats! He thumbs his nose at the Jedi Council! Such a pity he has to get his from Darth Maul, because you know he’d have done a better job with Anakin than Obi-Wan with his eternal stick up his bum. And speaking of Obi-Wan, this might have been the last time Ewan McGregor bothered to act in the series. I don't share the opinion that he is any better than anyone else in the rest of the films: he's quite clearly trying to do as little work as possible before collecting his cheque.

Jar-Jar Binks is still really annoying. Though not so annoying as I remember and it is great to know that you won't really have to put up with him much in the rest of the films.

It's a pity that Lucas can't just direct the action sequences and leave the bits with real people to someone else, because he doesn't get very good performances out of people. He does, however, know how to blow things up.

Comments

[cryptile.livejournal.com]

if Anakin’s first experience of the Jedi Council wasn’t as a bunch of old men who disregarded his fear for his mother and told him he was too old to be trained, then he might not have turned out to distrust and despise them. The problem is that you can't really see them as any sort of diplomats, except for the chance that they can screw with your mind

Torchwood Cardiff vs. Jedi Council -- who wins?

I harbor filthy thoughts about Sebulba

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen Torchwood, but I find it hard to believe that any one group of people/things/beings could combine both the stupidity and the smugness of the Jedi Council. It's the combination of the two that no doubt drove Palpatine to becoming Darth Sidious. That and the desire to fling things at Yoda's head (which I can sympathise with).

Mind you, I am willing to be advised otherwise.

[cryptile.livejournal.com]

Torchwood's pretty stupid and smug. And oblivious. You're not missing too much.

As for the Jedi -- how is it that Palpatine, a fully-fledged Sith Lord, can be around them and talk to them and adivse them and operate on the same friggin' planet as them and they never pick up who he is or what he's doing? Not even Yoda, supposedly this overclocked Jedi ubergenius? Is it that he's so clever, or just that they're so stupid?

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I think it's stupidity. I spent a lot of time in those films going 'look! he's right behind you!' much like in a pantomime. How do you not work out that the man benefitting from all of this in terms of power is probably the person who is the danger? I think Palpatine could probably have changed into Sith costume and danced around in front of the Jedi temple singing 'I'm an evil Sith lord who is seducing your chosen one!' and all the council would have said is 'I sense a great disturbance in the force.'

The other explanation is that they were bumped on the head once too often while duelling. Think about how often you see the Jedi being flung into walls; that's got to have some lasting effect.

Yoda is a little green twit, who apparently manages the marvellous feat of learning nothing over the course of 700+ years, which is quite remarkable. All he does is tell people things are probably not a good idea and then go along with it anyway.

[lovinlorne.livejournal.com]

The Jedi are still wankers.

I think that's my biggest issue with the prequels. Dude, they were jedi, and Lucas really did a number on their credibility. He took these really cool Jedi Masters from the first three movies, Obi-Wan and Yoda, and turned them into inept morons. No wonder the Dark Lords took over.

My next biggest problem with the prequels is Anakin. You mean to tell me that this whiny, punk ass kid is Darth Vader? The baddest bad ass that ever roamed the galaxy? Totally ended up destroying that character for me too.

However Ewan will always be the bright spot for me. I'm still firmly in the "he's the best thing going for these movies" camp. Hayden Christensen couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, even if you gave him a 3-D map with directions, Natalie Portman was, to me anyway, a big disappointment, and the entire second movie makes no sense, and should be wiped from the face of the planet. I mean come on, the guy is an obvious nut case, and you still marry him? Hello, asking for trouble.

Good lord, I've ranted! ;)

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Good lord, I've ranted.

I think there's a lot to rant about!

I didn't mind the dismemberment of Jedi credibility as much - there had to some reason the Sith came to power and the Jedi being a bunch of smug jerks who couldn't recognize evil if it leapt out at them was rather fitting. Also they are not terribly nice people either: quite clearly they would screw with your mind in an instant if they thought it was for some noble cause. At least the Dark Lords are obviously evil and you can anticipate their nasty tricks.

As for Anakin, I agree with you. What they really needed was for a film about him being evil as Vader before he put that suit on and slaughtering people. Or more of him slaughtering people while still nominally good. I actually think Hayden Christensen doesn't do a bad job once he goes evil (helps that he doesn't have to deal with saying much of Lucas' dialogue) but that's over too soon. If the second movie had been about his downfall and the third about him rampaging as Anakin before Mustaphar, then I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

And as for Padme, I guess her only excuse is that the Jedi council apparently think he's not enough of a nut-job to stop using as protection for important people so how is she supposed to know any better. In any case, there's a lot of people saying Anakin is unstable and dangerous (one wonders what Obi-Wan did with him in training) but then tossing him into situations where he is surely going to get even more unstable and dangerous. As you say, no wonder the Dark Lords took over.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

The jedi council annoyed me to no end. I rather found it interesting, as a description of an ossified, entrenched beaurocracy that any organization is prone to (think of the later days of all those warrior monastic orders).

I actually *gasp* prefer the prequels, but then I like Aankin fine, never loved the OT, and think RotS is the only one of SW movies good as a movie. So yeah, heretic :)

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I had a longer message typed up and LJ ate it!

Basically, it boiled down to Anakin being remarkably hot while evil and the Jedi being twits. And the worst sort of twits - who do all the things they tell other people not to do and then get rigid when faced with weakness (of others).

But Anakin as Vader in RotS should have had much more screen time. If only the entire film had been him rampaging across the galaxy... (I like RotS a lot; I am a sucker for doomed by good intentions plots and toss in a love story that turns out to be someone's undoing and I'm there).

[nolivingman.livejournal.com]

I watched all six movies last year to try to get some perspective, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the prequels, and how the original series kind of fell short of my memory of it. There were same lamenesses about the prequels - the romantic dialogue is a crime against humanity - but I LOVED the story of the Jedi Council being taken down through hubris and mismanagement. I was sad that I walked away from the prequels thinking that Yoda and Obi-Wan were lame, lame, lame, but there you go. It was kind of enjoyable, actually, watching how much the Emperor PWNed the entire Council and the Senate.

Qui-Gon joined Leia and Chewbacca as the characters that I'm left loving the most, the ones that didn't let me down.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I should really rewatch all the originals and see if my nostalgia is blinding me.

The prequels don't suffer so much in ideas as in writing (as you say, the romantic dialogue is dreadful beyond reason; a below average romance could do better). But I rather like the emperor's easy manipulation of everyone. He is the one character who really grows in menace between the two sets of films. And the Jedi really annoyed me so much it was rather fun seeing them get outclassed by evil.