A new, amazing, thorough and hilarious critique of The Phantom Menace - Page 7

Just watched all four ST:TNG movie reviews in a marathon session last night, and they're all as funny as the TPM review.  The side by side comparison of the scene from FC and the scene from SW it was lifted from was hilarious as was the fact that they used the same exact Bird of Prey explosion shot from ST6 in Generations.

The Matrix one is interesting, but it's a bit more ranty and less funny.  Still worth viewing.

Chuck,

What I was actually saying is that if the Queen had signed the treaty, it would've shown the weakness of Valorum as Chancellor to the Senate...that would lead to a vote of no confidence in Valorum in handling situations of this type. 

The whole plot in Episode I, from Sidious' perspective, is to get elected Chancellor.  How does he do that?  He creates a crisis that questions the leadership of Chancellor Valorum.  That's the whole film.

As for Anakin's turn, what else was he suppose to AFTER he helped in the death of the number two member of the Council?  He had no choice but to turn to Palpatine...not out of loyalty to him.  He turns to Palpatine because according to Palpatine, he's the only one that knows the secret that Anakin desires.  It's not about being a Sith or about turning on the Jedi for how they handled the situation between Palpatine and the Council.  It's about the promise he made to his mother in Episode II.  That scene is that pivotal to understanding why Anakin does what he does in Palpatine office.

I'm not really excusing Anakin's actions.  He choice to give in had to do with fear of losing Padme.  That's the entire crux of his turn.  It's on the screen.  I had no problems interpreting it on first viewing.  When he yells "I need him", it ain't about being cool with Palpatine.  If Windu finishes Palpatine, in Anakin's mind, it's over.  Padme dies. 

Again, he's not letting that happen.

As for the actions that happen after the office scene, he's chosen her not anything else so, for him, he will do what must be done.  It's absolutely 100% pathetic and atrocious, his actions, but the reasoning behind it is sound.   It's out of pure fear. 

I'm not the least bit an apologist of the Prequels.  I like them a lot but I have issues with them.  But on this particular matter, Anakin's turn, I was on the same wavelength with Lucas on opening night.
Edited by Cory S. - 1/7/10 at 12:53pm

Cory S.
I just disagree with your assessment of the situation.  Theoretically I could be pushed into killing a police officer who was going to shoot my son because he thought he was a real threat but that doesn't mean that after that act I would suddenly be capable of murdering all the neighborhood children.  There is absolutely no setup in any of the movies that simply choosing the Darkside makes you capable of any evil act without remorse, especially when everything the character has done before has been good and righteous except for one single act that required extreme circumstances to cause in the first place.

All we ever hear in the movies is "Fear leads to anger.  Anger leads to hate.  Hate leads to the Darkside".  Well guess what, we don't have those in that scene especially compared to the level of hate Anakin must have displayed in the Sandpeople village and he got through that just fine.

Anyway, if you found it believable then fine.  I found it total BS and out of left field.  I could have written a better scene and I'm just a hack. Lucas had 25 years and access to some of the best writers in the business and this is the best he came up with?  It should have been so good we wouldn't even be having this debate and instead be debating whether it was the greatest scene ever filmed.

Hmm. there isn't really any precedent in any of the movies for what happens when you turn to the Dark side.
Except for this:

"He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed."

"The boy you trained, gone he is, consumed by Darth Vader"

Not commenting on whether this is a good or bad thing, but it is the only reference outside of what we see Anakin actually do.

I recall the filmmakers were upfront and honest about recycling that shot to save money. (Not to mention shots of the Enterprise originally filmed for the TNG pilot.) It's really no worse than the spacedock footage from TMP reused in TWOK.

It dawned on me that the narrator sounds like a cross between Jame Gumb and Butthead. 

I'm going to imagine Patrick's reaction as I watch it.

I was impressed by the screener he must have gotten through interesting means.

I haven't watched the videos yet, but between the making of video and the extended HD trailer they played during numerous Fox shows including Bones, you could get a ton of HQ footage without downloading a torrent.

Speaking of which, torrents are not that interesting.

I want to see this dude review every film I've ever seen in my life!

Although I don't agree with his review of Avatar.
Edited by Inspector Hammer! - 2/3/10 at 3:46am

While TPM was overstuffed with things to make fun of, Avatar just isn't as fertile ground.  Cameron's development of story and character is solid whereas you could make fun of the story and characters in TPM all day long.

BTW Patrick, I don't think there was a second of footage that wasn't from a trailer or some other promotional source.

 Cameron has pretty solid grasp of story structure, so ripping Avatar from that POV really wouldn't work. 

Now if they want to do something where they compare it to Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas, Fern Gully, etc. maybe that could work. 

That was amusing. His examination of creating the perfectly empathetic character was well done. The attempt to tear down the story was wasted effort.

if people have such a huge rant/resentment about George... why not go off and make their own star wars?

JediFonger waits and hears crickets and chirps... =).

@least filmmakers like Cameron makes Avatar to keep the ball rolling...

Yeah, considering how Dark City, when it was potentially being renamed and Dark Empire was an option, got threatened by Lucasfilm for copyright infringement based on having "Dark" and "Empire" close together...something tells me anyone attempting to "make their own Star Wars" better have crazy deep pockets for lawyer retention.

If there was a potential lawsuit, it was because Dark Empire was the name of a relatively famous and then-recent Star Wars comic book series. It would have had nothing to do with the words 'Dark' and 'Empire' being close together.

I thought J.J. Abrams essentially did that with the new Trek film last year.

Seriously though, if George restored and released the original versions of the films on Blu Ray, it would smooth over a lot of things. (And make him a lot of money to boot.) But after what I saw on the THX-1138 DVD, I've lost hope.

I'm amazed to this day, nobody on the level of a Roger Ebert has publicly taken him to task for treating the original films like crap.

Thanks for the clarification. But the argument still stands as to the response to JediFonger about why someone else doesn't make their own Star Wars. Clearly LFL is very protective of anything SW related, so there would be zero chance of someone else doing their own SW movie.

er... i hope you guys got what i meant... i meant create their own "universe". i think lucas wants people to not just 'copy' his ideas, since they aren't 'original' anyways. u know the whole 7 plots old addage. thus, make their own "avatar" which is what cameron did vs. just sitting around talking about it >P.

1 day i plan to. just not at the moment, life, etc.

So only those who create something like a "Star Wars" can criticize George Lucas?

No, but it would also be nice to not have everyone with an internet connection thinking they can do a better job. This goes for all movies, not just Star Wars.

That's on Lucas for making something so terrible that everyone thinks they can do a better job.

It's not like everyone and their brother is online talking about how Nolan ruined Batman or Raimi ruined Spiderman or Jackson ruined LOTR.  They have their detractors, of course, but they all did their job well in enriching the brand, something Lucas botched with great prejudice.

Oh please! Just because the Prequels didn't live up to the Original Trilogy doesn't make them Battlefield Earth or Van Helsing. People need to get over their hatred for these films and move on. It's been 5 years since the last SW film was even made for crap's sake! 

Oh, and please don't tell me you think Raimi did a good job with Spider-Man 3. That was every bit as bad if not worse than TPM.

Maybe not Battlefield Earth, but Van Helsing?  Yeah, Van Helsing.

Not living up to the OT is one thing, but going so far under as to be worse than, say, a Michael Bay film is another.

Actually, I didn't like the Nolan Batmans or the Raimi Spidermans.  I was just using them as examples of directors who made films the majority of fans liked because they weren't looking at their movie as a toy farm and they didn't royally f*ck up when they cast the lead.

Well, if you're equating any SW film with Van Helsing or saying they're worse than a Bay film(did you actually see Transformers 2?) then clearly we have nothing more to talk about. I'll leave it at that.

Obviously I'm only equating episodes 1-3.  And yes, they're that bad.  At least Transformers 2 was true to itself (just another 2+ hours of noisy nonsense) -- episodes 1-3 shit all over the legacy of 4-6.  Actually, Lucas was already starting to screw up with the original trilogy when he kept adding stupid CGI scenes and having Greedo shoot first before TPM was released.

Coming from someone who has already stated he didn't like Nolan's Batman movies or Raimi's Spider-Man movies(especially the first two) I can't take anything you say seriously. Sorry, time to move on.