Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

[TordelBack]

It's Padme's fate that annoys me most about the Prequels, at least as far as plot goes. I know it's not the main point of the thing, but the Padme established in TPM and AotC dying 'of a broken heart' in three minutes flat hacks me off no end - why it couldn't have been her injuries I don't know.  I also don't see any reason that she couldn't have survived and gone into hiding with Leia to Alderaan, probably in a miserable state.  Leia herself tells us what happened to her in RotJ (so there would be no unresolved ploy threads), and apart from pretending that her first adoptive mother (Breha Organa) died when she was young, or that she has a ridiculous memory that her twin brother lacks, I can't see how you're supposed to square it with the events as filmed:

"Do you remember your mother? Your real mother? "

"Just a little bit. She died when I was very young.
...
Just images really. Feelings.
...
She was very beautiful. Kind, but sad."

'Very young' being three minutes old.  It's a needless contradiction, and an invalidation of the quite moving Sophie's Choice-esque situation implied by RotJ for the previous 20 years - one child goes with Padme, one with Ben.

[Spaceghost]

I can't see how you're supposed to square it with the events as filmed:

Don't bother. Just ignore the prequels completely as the pile of stinking shit they are.

I certainly don't let the 'banged out in one draft by a hack' scripts of the more recent films spoil my enjoyment of the classic originals.

[locustsofdeath!]

The extra stuff fits pretty well with The Empire Strikes Back. It certainly adds to the Bespin sequence without distracting. The Hoth stuff was mainly cleaning up, which worked well. (I'll admit I didn't notice the problems speeder cockpit frame transparency issue until pointed out to me by the documentary, but it looked good.)

I can understand people being miffed by the extra dinosaurs in Star Wars and the dance number in Jedi... although they didn't bother me much.

Agreed about the Bespin stuff - the windows in the city looked so natural that when I first saw the revamped version I didn't even notice! And the extra footage of the populace reacting to Lando's announcement looked good, too. I also didn't mind replacing Vader's "Bring my shuttle" line as that made him out to be a spoiled loser (though now that we see Anakin in the PT is probably better in keeping with the character - but the Vader we see in ESB is a darker, more brooding and menacing character than we saw in ANH).

I didn't like the new wampa footage though - the creatures didn't even look the same to me, and I found it pretty glaring when the new creature walked on set.

Now...that dance number in Jedi just destroyed the pacing of that scene. Much as I love Jedi, the pacing is convoluted throughout, and this just adds to the mess. There was general tension in that scene and the Jedi Rocks number nullifies that.

And this is what I don't understand about Lucas - when did everything become goofball comedy? Even in the most serious of scenes he feels the need to inject some sort of nonsense, nonsense that's not even as funny as some of the Mad Magazine spoofs I've read!

Lucas' biggest fault in the way he made the PT is easy to see (for me): He couldn't decide what he wanted to do. He wanted a big drama political storyline for adults and wedged in all kinds of goofiness for kids. He should have gone one way or the other. As it is, feels like there are two different films at work.

[TordelBack]

I don't mind the new Wampa, and my only beef with the Empire DVD revisions is the new Emperor's hologram sequence.  I don't mind that much that the spooky Clive Reville Chimp Lady is gone, but McDiarmid's make-up is horribly slap-dash, the hologram effect is different from any of the others in the OT, and some of the new lines are (even more) clunky and give too much away too soon.  Other than that the effects fixes and extra footage are a definite (if unneeded) improvement.

As to Jedi, I noted recently that the Shaw/Christiansen switcheroo at the end went over very well with the 'new' audience (or subset thereof that lives under my roof).  It annoys me in its illogicality (they could at least have 'aged' Anakin 20 years, even if he 'died' when Vader was born (which I think is just a fundamental misapprehension on Ben's part)), but I think it was a wise move all things considered.  The new dance sequence has grown on me over the years, although I miss Sy Snootles' feather, as has the Ewok celebration (although why the Jedi Temple is still standing (and has been repaired) on Coruscant is beyond me).  BTW, if you haven't seen the new adventures of Sy Snootles over in Clone Wars Season 3 get thee to a torrent now (S03 E09: The Hunt for Ziro) - she's quite a lady.

OTOH the cumulative additions and revisions to Star Wars over the years have just got worse and worse.  It's not worth it just for the shiny new X-Wing shots.  

[Colin Zeal]

Six pages and no mention of R2-D2's ability to fly?

[TordelBack]

Six pages and no mention of R2-D2's ability to fly?

I'm assuming either the BluRay or 3D editions will have him gently descend from Jabba's sailbarge to the sand beside the upturned 3PO (the only OT scene where flying would have been the only obvious choice - others like Dagobah and Endor were sudden falls).  Problem, errr, solved.  Or maybe Jabba had his wings clipped, so to speak?

[Colin Zeal]

I should say that I love Star Wars and generally enjoyed the prequels. I thought ROTS was excellent and easily the best of the new trilogy. However R2 developing a jet pack had me groaning in the cinema and pissed me off no end.

[TordelBack]

However R2 developing a jet pack had me groaning in the cinema and pissed me off no end.

It's a good job they didn't go with its original intro so, where R2 accidentally and 'amusingly' rolls off the landing platform on Coruscant in TPM.  There's pointless and there's pointless.

It makes sense to me that a droid whose primary function is to crawl about outside spacecraft should have some sort of manoeuvering jet capacity, it's just the daftness of being able to fly for extended periods in full gravity... Still, if Watto can hover with those tiny wings...

[Richmond Clements]

I like TPM, and like that it can still generate pages of debate!

In order to delay starting to rewrite Corvus yesterday, I watched the review of TPM on youtube linked earlier on this thread.
It was... okay. He makes some good points, but I noticed he hammers home his weakest arguements time and again and then buries them in a joke hoping that you won't see they don't actually hold up (kind of like Lucas and his writing really...).
On the whole it was good though, and very funny- even though I don't agree with everything he says.

[radiator]

I thought of something else I like about The Phantom Menace.... The music!

[Goaty]

I thought of something else I like about The Phantom Menace.... The music!

and the Teaser...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYkHD9y8EqI

Well here other teasers;

Attack of the Clones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ncFCndCLG8

Revenge of the Sith:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0BWpIFZGDc

[TordelBack]

and the Teaser...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYkHD9y8EqI

Indeed.  That's a 'where were you when...?' moment for me, the day I downloaded that first trailer a fuzzy postage-stamp size over a crappy phoneline and then sat up all night watching it over and over trying to make sense of the pixellated blurs...  I went to more awful films that year in the hope that the trailer would be in front of  them!

Which reminds me, I do hope BluRay or 3D TPM replaces Scary Hairy Puppet Yoda with the decent CGI version (better yet the Tartakovsky version, but no hope of that...).

[klute]

A little late in the debate but this subject started just as i played all the dvds for my 4 year old son, he loves them all unlike me who is old enough to remember the films and toys playing a big part in my childhood.

I wasnt/am not totally against episodes 1,2,3 though i found TPM to be the worst if only for a few things :-

1- Jar Jar binks more the way he was used as comedy relief as oppose to his character and yes his voice/dialect really irritated me

2- Darth Maul in my Opinion could have done with more film time and his death scene (cgi) look truely awful for a cgi company that boasts being a pioneer in there field.

3 - The pod race and anakin in space taking down the droid control ship was really just cringeworthy, granted in a film of make believe i still found it hard to believe/accept ("The chosen one") taking down that ship pretty much on his own

There are what i consider smaller faults with the following two films but not big enough for me to feel uncomfortable watching them.

The prequals i loved the originals  and was maybe a little sceptical about the inclusion of some of the added scenes/special effects on watching i think my biggest complaint was the scene with han solo and the cgi jabba the hut it just didnt look real and if you add something like that to the film in my opinion it has to look as real as everything else and as though it fit's/was meant to be there

[Goaty]

and this little poster, great idea, as Dredd does same... but does Anakin looks like been cut up from scene of film???

[klute]

Six pages and no mention of R2-D2's ability to fly?

I had no problem with his flying or lack of in episodes 4,5,6 and just put it down to old age and a no longer functioning ability