Yep, I'm taking the plunge. I'm going to do the thing that every movie fan has to do: review all of the Star Wars movies. A lot of my opinions are pretty much the standard opinions on these movies, but I do have some interesting views on some of them.
What can you say about Star Wars? It's a part of all of our lives, and we've known it such childhood. It informs our creative minds so much, and interested us to no end. We all have our feelings on these movies, and I think that's a sign of people's passion for this franchise. How can people complain about the prequels without deeply loving the originals? With that out of the way, let's get on to the Phantom Menace.
Oh boy.
Ohhhh boy.
What do I say about the Phantom Menace that hasn't been said? What else can I add to it? This is one of the most maligned movie of the past twenty years, and for good reason; it sucks! Everything about this movie fails. The story is weak, the plot has little consequences, to call the characters cardboard cutouts would be an insult to cardboard cutouts, the CGI was offensively annoying, Jar Jar was just plain offensive, the acting shockingly awful, this movie is just bad. A total letdown, considering the hype for it. This movie was a marketing machine, which I'm sure anyone alive at this time will tell you. I plan on doing a Star Wars retrospective later on where I'll get more into the marketing of Episode I, but the constant ads were self sabotaging, building up the hype to levels no movie could attain, let alone a movie as terrible as this. Does it deserve the hate? Yes. This movie was just meant to make some money, not to tell the "early story of Star Wars" like George Lucas loves to insist. I know he's claimed that Star Wars is really just one long movie with six acts. Sure.
Is there anything I do like about the Phantom Menace? Well... this is a weird thing to say, but I like that it was shot on film, not digitally. Yeah, I know how much I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here, but it's something. I think it's because Episodes II and III was shot digitally that I even notice this, but I like the way Episode I looks, minus all the weak CGI. It had a warmth to it that the awful looking digital photography lacked later on. I'll get more to the digital photography later, but that is one thing Episode I has that I like. I also kinda like the podrace, I guess. It was kinda fun. I do have a nostalgia for it that does at times cut it a bit of slack. I was growing up when the hype train was coming, and I was really into it. But I'm still able to look at it objectively as the disaster it is.
Not the most detailed review I've ever written, but I'm just retreading old material. Watch the Red Letter Media review for more stuff, or just Google the title. It's one of the most discussed movies ever, for all of the wrong reasons. So go ahead, look into it for yourself. Phantom Menace sucks. Next.
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