Posted on 02/13/2012 8:42:27 PM PST by nickcarraway
In the dock, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace stands accused. Counsel for the prosecution is Neil Smith. Counsel for the defence is Jonathan Crocker. Court is in session!
The Phantom Menace has the dubious honour of being perhaps the most despised film of the last 20 years. With expectations sky-high following everyone's favourite sci-fi trilogy, Part I, for many, failed to deliver the pure thrill the Star Wars universe promised in the 70s and 80s. George Lucas must have instantly regretted the inclusion of infamous alien rasta Jar Jar Binks.
With The Phantom Menace coming to cinemas in a new 3D re-release (The first of all six movies' 3D versions), MSN Movies held a debate. The question: Is The Phantom Menace that bad? Counsels Smith (prosecution) and Crocker (defence) have delivered their statements below. YOU are the judges. Please offer up your verdicts in the comments!
COMPARISONS TO THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY
The Prosecution The main difference between the original trilogy and Phantom? There's nothing at stake. Where Star Wars began by plunging us headlong into an intergalactic civil war in which entire planets hung in the balance, Phantom involves a dreary trade dispute in which the only things up for grabs are figures on a spreadsheet. The original trilogy charts a young man's rite of passage from humble farm boy to heroic knight. Phantom, to quote Simon Pegg, is "a veiled whine about having to pay taxes". The first three pictures are fun, fast and epic. Phantom is slow, confusing, meandering and dull.
The defence
Choreographed by Brit stuntman/swordmaster Nick Gillard (Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, Henry V, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, Wanted), the three-way "Duel Of The Fates" isn't just the best sword fight in any Star Wars film, it's one of the best sword
(Excerpt) Read more at movies.uk.msn.com ...
Perhaps she promised them "Hope" and "Change."
I have to admit to having Red Letter Media as one of my guilty pleasures.
I've only half-seen a couple of episodes so far, but they were pretty good. You get to see the clones as a bit more human and less as an organic counterpart to the droid army, as they deal with the conflicts between following orders and doing what they think is the right thing.
Yes, the Midichlorians absolutely ruined the mystical connotations of the Force.
It was no longer “Do or do not, there is no try”, where belief in your abilities and a strong connection to the Force was all anybody needed to move a rock, or an entire spaceship.
Now it was “sorry, your midichlorian count just isn’t sufficient to move an object of that mass.”
Idiotic.
Oh yeah. I’ve seen all of the Plinkett reviews. When I first saw the Phantom Menace review, I was astounded at how well he nailed exactly what I’d been thinking.
And that bit he does with the background Star Trek officer asking questions about the logical flaws in everyone’s plans never ceases to send me into hysterics. I don’t even know why, it’s just damned funny.
::shudder::
I can only imagine! Meesa gonna have nightmares.
It is amazing to me how much that review has shaped my view of storytelling.
Stories should usually follow a classic narrative pattern with an protagonist people can identify with.
Characters should have defining characteristics above and beyond what they do and what they look like.
Action sequences should have an element of danger to them for dramatic tension - otherwise it is just guys dancing around with light swords knocking down special effects.
I’d be interested to know what some of the common innacuracies are. I can’t say I know enough of the details to respond to them.
The Red Tails movie was definitely historical fiction, not documentary. The plot was about a specific group of fictional flyers who happened to be Tuskegee Airmen, but but the Tuskegee Airmen as a whole were secondary.
The aerial combat scenes were spectaculaer to watch, but they were very sanitized. The Captain starts losing it over a couple of KIAs. A few bombers are shot down, but in historical accounts we normally hear about massive attrition rates for bomber uinits. The Red Tail kill to loss rates were unrealistice.
Despite the flaws, and I don’t know that they were really flaws, the movie was very good.
I know this rthread is supposed to be about Phantom Menace, but I’d rather talk about anything else.
The whole Anakin Skywalker plot was stupid, and full of holes. They end the movie with Anakin's mom still being held by the slave owner, which turns into an issue in the next episode. An organization like the Jedi couldn't be bothered to send somebody back to get Anakin's mom after they get off the planet?
To be fair, the Jedi were portrayed (intentionally or not) as arrogant and short-sighted. In fact, they fairly well deserved what they got in the end.
You owe an apology to every Basset Hound that ever lived.
I took “No, there is another” as Yoda only knew.
And OW does tell Luke after this, once he was told by Yoda. That was my take.
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