Yes, it's that bad.
People still watch movies?
Phantom Menace didn’t merely suck. It suckedy-suck-sucked. It defined “suck” not for merely Sci Fi, but for movies in general.
It was certainly my least favorite of the 6. It serves the purpose of being a good setup for the series, but just isn’t a good movie, especially in the context of the others.
“Attack of The Clones” was ‘good’. “Revenge of The Sith” was great.
Episode 1 should have been about adult Anakin slowly turning to the Dark Side and the birth of Luke and Leia, while the next two should have been the building of the empire.
It can be argued that Jar Jar Binks was potentially harmful to any reasonable person, but outside that, I don’t think so.
It was brutal. I wanted to fight Jar Jar Binks and the little kid. Full out MMA fight. How they ruined Star Wars and Indiana Jones is beyond me.
Guess who thought last weekend, and wrongly, “No WAY can JarJar Binks suck as hard in 3-D as he did in 2-D”?
I bought episode III when it came out but I never saw it in the theater. I thought I would start collecting the whole saga. I did not care for episode III. It was boring. I never bought another starwars movie again. I saw episode I in the theaters opening weekend. I think I liked it. Its hard for me to keep them all straight in my memory. But I think the only part of episode I that was lame to me was the scene where Yoda has a light saber fight. I laughed at the screen in the movie theater when that scene came up. I don’t know who wrote that scene but they should be shot. Yoda is supposedly the most advanced jedi master of all time. He should’ve just made one extremely fast lightsabre move and that’s it. Fight over.
I’ll be contrarian and say that I much preferred TPM to the other two prequels. It’s visually beautiful and several scenes (the early underwater scenes and the pod race) have a sense of wonder about them that I don’t find in the other two. The lightsaber fight with Darth Maul at the end is as good as any in all six movies. In fact, even though the original trilogy are all better films, many of the scenes are clunky and visually uninteresting compared to TPM.
If Vader had killed Jar Jar Binks in “Revenge of the Sith”, I’d have spotted him all his subsequent evil deeds. If he had polished off those damn Ewoks in “Return of the Jedi”, I would have proposed him for sainthood.
The ONLY thing good in Phantom Menace was Darth Maul.
Jar Jar Binks. Nuff said.
However Attack of The Clones sucked worse.
Until I found that if you cut every scene with Anikin and Whats-her-name until they are hauled into the arena it is actually not that bad.
Bottom line for me: Between episode IV starting in 1977 and episode III in the new movies, Lucas destroyed his own story. So many inconsistencies, it’s not funny.
For one: Obiwan did not know Luke had a sister. Only Yoda knew that. But in episode III he is there to witness the twins being born.
I also felt, like others, he made Darth Vader way too young for the one we knew in the beginning. By the new storyline, Vader would barely be 40 years old in episode V. I don’t buy it.
The best part about the prequels is the rise of Senator palpatine. This part of the story is done almost entirely in the background, though, so you have to suffer through the foreground along with it.
Jar jar was an unfortunate case of target demographic pandering gone horribly wrong. In the first films, the ewoks were targeted towards pre teens and Lucas got away with it because the audience was in fact teens and pre teens. Jar jar fails because he was also created for pre teens, but the phantom menace audience was much older, they were original viewers of star wars now grown up.
I don’t even waste my time with new movies anymore. Nor do I watch any of that garbage that can be found on the alphabet channels.
Yes, it's that bad.
Why it sucked:
1. Jar Jar Binks.
2. Demystified the Force into “biology”
3. Obi-Wan’s history with Vader/Anakin completely depleted of meaning from Episode IV.
4. “There are only two can be.” Only TWO evil Sith Lords!? What? Really!? What fun is that? What is the point of a whole buncha Jedi, and why can’t a whole “buncha” Jedi find two Sith, take them down, what have you? (and don’t give me that “clouded” b.s.)
5. Locale, ship designs, sets, etc., don’t match up with the old series. Ships are generally unoriginal. I mean, come on! A silver SR-71 Blackbird!
6. Waste 1/3rd of the film on a “pod race” when there were obviously BETTER ways to gain parts for the ship. You’re a Jedi! Who says you couldn’t use the mind trick on other parts dealers. Did Qui-Gon really believe Watto when he said no one else had the parts? Hah!
7. Robots with EMOTIONS! They quiver and tremble in the midst of battle? Send them back to the factory! Get a refund! And what a waste of this type of AI on a BATTLE droid! Where are the big menacing droids like IG-88, the bounty hunter.. (I am so revealing my nerdiness here).
8. Sith can learn all kinds of really cool moves, yet can’t block a dude from jumping over them, then getting them from behind. Really?
9. Oh, yeah, let’s make said Sith look like... the DEVIL! Gee, do you think he’s evil? I’m not sure. Never sure what his motivation was. He never did much, only looked menacing. What revenge is he talking about...
10. “Yippee!” “I wonder what this does!” “Spinning, that’s a good move!” “Look ma, no Jedi training!” KABLOOEY!
I could go on....
In related but irrelevant news, the European cold snap brought snow to Tatooine last week:
http://www.tunisia-live.net/2012/02/06/tataouine-the-setting-of-star-wars-covered-in-snow/