Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) (1 Viewer)

[FoxyMulder]

Now don't get me wrong. McGregor didn't suck in the film. I just felt that at the time he wasn't that natural in front of the green screen. I believe McGregor himself called the film "flat". And IMO he's right. Not horrible, not disaster.. Just a bit flat and lifeless.

He obviously learned from the experience because he was much more comfortable in the sequels and in Jack The Giant Slayer.

 

[SamT]

IMO the fact that the film is flat and lifeless lies squarely on Lucas' shoulders. At one point in time he was a pretty good director. That skill had been purged from his body by the time he started work on the prequels.

Actually he was never a great director. If you look at the behind the scenes of Star Wars (1977) you see that the actors are making fun of him. Everyone says that he was never an actor's director and didn't talk to his actors too much.

If you look at the deleted scenes and the official making of, you see they talk about the first cut of the movie and how horrible it was. Star Wars was saved by editing. There were people equal or above Lucas that gave him advice. It was truly a collaborative film.

The prequels are not collaborative. It's really shocking to me that Lucas himself admits he is not good with writing dialogs but he never hired anyone to polish his dialogs like his earlier films. The prequels are done just by one person and I believe that it's the editing that kills them. You could have done a better job just with editing the same footage. Editing is about cutting out all the bad parts and they kept all the bad parts in!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The prequels are not collaborative. It's really shocking to me that Lucas himself admits he is not good with writing dialogs but he never hired anyone to polish his dialogs like his earlier films. The prequels are done just by one person and I believe that it's the editing that kills them. You could have done a better job just with editing the same footage. Editing is about cutting out all the bad parts and they kept all the bad parts in!

Not sure about the other the prequels, but Tom Stoppard was hired to do a polish on the Revenge Of The Sith script. For Attack Of The Clones, Lucas shares writing credit with Jonathan Hales, who was a writer on the Young Indiana Jones television series. Now, I'm not saying that these are masterpieces of the writing genre, but he did have at least a little help.

I agree that some extra editing could have helped the films - I love the prequels and make no apologies for that, but there are definitely places that could use trims. There are a lot of instances of dialogue that's mostly okay, and then there will be one terrible line at the end of a scene, or terrible line reading, where I think the movie would have been helped with a little tweak. (I think they did even make a tweak in Attack Of The Clones for the DVD after the theatrical release -- originally Natalie Portman falls from that plane or hover carrier while in pursuit of Dooku at the end, and it's a dramatic looking fall. A storm trooper finds her lying on the ground in the desert and asks her how she is, and the line reading where she says she's okay is so peppy and vibrant and not at all the sound of someone who just fell out of a plane. On the DVD, her line reading is changed to something that sounds a little more mumbled and incoherent. There are a bunch of bad lines and bad deliveries like that that I would have trimmed if I had been in George's place.)

I also wonder if part of the problem is that when Lucas started on the prequels, he didn't have the whole thing mapped out. When you're making sequels, I don't think it's necessary to know what every moment of a third film will be when you're just starting the first. But with prequels that directly tie into the original, more careful plotting is required, and I think he skimped out on some of that work -- plot points and storylines in the prequels were up in the air and being reshot all the way into post-production on each of the films. The films aren't as cohesive as I'd like, and there are plot points that get brought up in one film only to be dropped either during that film, or simply never mentioned again in a sequel. Obi-wan is sent on a detective mission in Episode II, and while his detecting leads him into the battle at the end of the film, he doesn't really solve the mystery he set out to solve, and it's never mentioned again in Episode III.

I love the prequels. They're entertaining to me, they're fun, they're easy re-watches... but they're not perfect, and I think they could have been improved by focusing more time on the writing and plotting of the three films before they shot one of them. But that's not the way Lucas decided to make them, and they are what they are. I also get how the effects overkill happened -- I mean, for the original films, getting the effects right was a struggle, and seemingly simple visual ideas took a long time to happen -- I can't blame George for being excited about being finally able to write a sentence like "a jellyfish-like submarine speeds underwater to a hidden ocean city" and then actually being able to depict it. It's just that, in that excitement, there are times when he didn't pause to think, "Does Star Wars need a jellyfish-like submarine speeding to a hidden ocean city?"

 

[Jari K]

"At one point in time he was a pretty good director."I've a theory about Lucas. After the first SW, he achieved what he wanted to achieve. As a director I mean - as a "producer", "businessman" and "CGI/visual effect enthusiast" he was just getting started.He did a very wise decision NOT to direct the sequels for the original trilogy. That being said, he wasn't that wise with the prequel trilogy. I'm glad he was again wise with the upcoming trilogy. SW needs a new direction and a fresh start. But of course they have to respect/follow the original films and the "world" that Lucas created.

 

[Dale MA]

Not sure about the other the prequels, but Tom Stoppard was hired to do a polish on the Revenge Of The Sith script. For Attack Of The Clones, Lucas shares writing credit with Jonathan Hales, who was a writer on the Young Indiana Jones television series. Now, I'm not saying that these are masterpieces of the writing genre, but he did have at least a little help.

I agree that some extra editing could have helped the films - I love the prequels and make no apologies for that, but there are definitely places that could use trims. There are a lot of instances of dialogue that's mostly okay, and then there will be one terrible line at the end of a scene, or terrible line reading, where I think the movie would have been helped with a little tweak. (I think they did even make a tweak in Attack Of The Clones for the DVD after the theatrical release -- originally Natalie Portman falls from that plane or hover carrier while in pursuit of Dooku at the end, and it's a dramatic looking fall. A storm trooper finds her lying on the ground in the desert and asks her how she is, and the line reading where she says she's okay is so peppy and vibrant and not at all the sound of someone who just fell out of a plane. On the DVD, her line reading is changed to something that sounds a little more mumbled and incoherent. There are a bunch of bad lines and bad deliveries like that that I would have trimmed if I had been in George's place.)

I also wonder if part of the problem is that when Lucas started on the prequels, he didn't have the whole thing mapped out. When you're making sequels, I don't think it's necessary to know what every moment of a third film will be when you're just starting the first. But with prequels that directly tie into the original, more careful plotting is required, and I think he skimped out on some of that work -- plot points and storylines in the prequels were up in the air and being reshot all the way into post-production on each of the films. The films aren't as cohesive as I'd like, and there are plot points that get brought up in one film only to be dropped either during that film, or simply never mentioned again in a sequel. Obi-wan is sent on a detective mission in Episode II, and while his detecting leads him into the battle at the end of the film, he doesn't really solve the mystery he set out to solve, and it's never mentioned again in Episode III.

I love the prequels. They're entertaining to me, they're fun, they're easy re-watches... but they're not perfect, and I think they could have been improved by focusing more time on the writing and plotting of the three films before they shot one of them. But that's not the way Lucas decided to make them, and they are what they are. I also get how the effects overkill happened -- I mean, for the original films, getting the effects right was a struggle, and seemingly simple visual ideas took a long time to happen -- I can't blame George for being excited about being finally able to write a sentence like "a jellyfish-like submarine speeds underwater to a hidden ocean city" and then actually being able to depict it. It's just that, in that excitement, there are times when he didn't pause to think, "Does Star Wars need a jellyfish-like submarine speeding to a hidden ocean city?"

That's a great summation of the situation.

I saw TPM at the cinema in '99, when I had just turned fourteen, and it blew me away. I didn't have internet access and I didn't read critical opinions. Me and my friends lapped it up and spent much of that summer talking about the film and its implications to the rest of the 'saga'. I feel like Lucas aimed the film at people such as myself back then and not the fans who grew up with the OT, he's been paying for that ever since.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

I feel like Lucas aimed the film at people such as myself back then and not the fans who grew up with the OT, he's been paying for that ever since.

Dale, I understand your point. But I believe you are assuming it must be either/or. He could have, very easily, aimed it a general audience. Like Lord of the Rings did, or Spider-Man, or Jaws, or the original Star Wars. Getting 14 year olds is easy. It isn't like tightening TPM and focusing a bit more on the script and story balance would have turned 14 year olds OFF. The things that young teenage boys like in the film would all still be there. I'm not going after you, Dale, just that argument. I've seen it many times before, and if GL truly aimed the film at Tweens, then why are we accepting of that...his original film was meant to be more timeless.Truthfully, I think GL was more focused on invigorating the Star Wars brand than the film itself. For which he was thunderously successful.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Obi-wan is sent on a detective mission in Episode II, and while his detecting leads him into the battle at the end of the film, he doesn't really solve the mystery he set out to solve, and it's never mentioned again in Episode III.

He does solve it, we find out about Count Dooku and the clones from the detective work, what else is there. ?

 

[dpippel]

Actually he was never a great director. If you look at the behind the scenes of Star Wars (1977) you see that the actors are making fun of him. Everyone says that he was never an actor's director and didn't talk to his actors too much.

I didn't say he was "great", I said he was "pretty good". Big difference.

 

[RobertR]

IMO, George Lucas never had much ability to direct people, write dialogue, or create a serious drama. Star Wars became a success because of a serendipitous collaboration between Lucas, who happened to create a fictional setting that people found appealing, with lots and lots of SF hardware, nice sounding sword and sorcery mystical mumbo jumbo, and a straightforward good rebels against evil empire plot with a Saturday afternoon serial feel to it (This was in marked contrast to other 70s SF films, with their grim, “serious” dystopian visions of the future such as Silent Running, Rollerball, Soylent Green, Logan’s Run, Zardoz, etc.), the editing skills of his wife Marcia, John Dykstra’s special effects crew, and John Williams’ music. It was that tension and interaction between multiple creative minds that made the film (and ESB) what it was. Check out the making of The Godfather for another example of a film that became great because of creative conflict.

The prequels exposed his weaknesses because he wasn’t interested in collaboration anymore , but in doing things his way and only his way. What really interested him were the technological aspects of filmmaking instead of “mundane” things like writing convincing dialogue or coming up with a good, convincing story. He simply couldn’t acknowledge his weaknesses as a storyteller, and he wasn’t about to have anyone around him to tell him what those weaknesses were (did ANYONE who wasn’t a yes-man REALLY think Jar Jar was a good idea?). It very much shows in the (semi) final products, with the seemingly endless technical tinkering.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

He does solve it, we find out about Count Dooku and the clones from the detective work, what else is there. ?

As I recall... the mystery started with, who is trying to kill Padme for her opposition to starting a war? And Obi-Wan ends up at Kamino (the clone planet), and discovers that a Jedi named Sifo-Dyas placed an order for a clone army on behalf of the Jedi. The only problem with this is that Sifo-Dyas is long dead, and the Jedi never authorized such a purchase.

Now, as the audience, between Episodes II and III, we can come to the conclusion that Count Dooku was likely the person who ordered the clones on behalf of Palpatine/Sidious, as part of Palpatine's plan to get full power over the galaxy. But I don't think it's adequately explained in the films. How is it that we don't see a single member of the republic or jedi question, "Wait a minute... we're on the verge of war we don't have the resources (soldiers) to fight, and then all of a sudden we find that someone placed an order for a massive clone army for us that just so happens to be ready to go right now?"

Instead, Obi-Wan follows Jango Fett to Geonosis, discovers that Dooku is likely behind Padme's assassination attempt (though Dooku doesn't admit it and the reasoning is explained), and then everyone is all, "Hey, it totally seems like a good idea to take this magical mystery army of clones made up from this assassin we're chasing, and use them as our army and never question that."

Seems like a stunning oversight on behalf of the Jedi to me.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Instead, Obi-Wan follows Jango Fett to Geonosis, discovers that Dooku is likely behind Padme's assassination attempt (though Dooku doesn't admit it and the reasoning is explained), and then everyone is all, "Hey, it totally seems like a good idea to take this magical mystery army of clones made up from this assassin we're chasing, and use them as our army and never question that."

Seems like a stunning oversight on behalf of the Jedi to me.

When good fortune comes your way you sometimes don't question why and just accept it, i get your point though.

 

[TravisR]

The last episodes of The Clone Wars help explain more of Sifo-Dyas. Not that that excuses not explaining it in the movies but for those curious, it's out there.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The last episodes of The Clone Wars help explain more of Sifo-Dyas. Not that that excuses not explaining it in the movies but for those curious, it's out there.

Cool -- I'm not up to the final season yet (finished four and have yet to start five), but thanks for the heads up!

 

[Dale MA]

The last episodes of The Clone Wars help explain more of Sifo-Dyas. Not that that excuses not explaining it in the movies but for those curious, it's out there.

Is that the "lost" episodes or the end of S5?

 

[joshEH]

The prequels are not collaborative. It's really shocking to me that Lucas himself admits he is not good with writing dialogs but he never hired anyone to polish his dialogs like his earlier films. The prequels are done just by one person and I believe that it's the editing that kills them. You could have done a better job just with editing the same footage. Editing is about cutting out all the bad parts and they kept all the bad parts in!

Also, Lucas actually did approach Frank Darabont about performing rewrites/script-polishes on The Phantom Menace, but Darabont was forced to turn him down, due to him being Writer's Guild, and Lucas having resigned the WGA back in 1981:

http://www.theforce.net/episode1/story/frank_darabont_refutes_tpm_rumors_75332.asp

 

[TravisR]

Is that the "lost" episodes or the end of S5?

The lost episodes.

 

[SamT]

What are the lost episodes? They never made them?

 

[TravisR]

What are the lost episodes? They never made them?

It's what Disney called the sixth season of the series. They only referred to those episodes as 'lost episodes' and 'bonus content' which I assume was some kind of way for them to duck out of having to pay residuals to the folks involved.

The sixth season is currently a Netflix exclusive in the U.S. but it aired in Germany and I'm sure it'll be available on Blu-ray and DVD at some point.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

It's what Disney called the sixth season of the series. They only referred to those episodes as 'lost episodes' and 'bonus content' which I assume was some kind of way for them to duck out of having to pay residuals to the folks involved. The sixth season is currently a Netflix exclusive in the U.S. but it aired in Germany and I'm sure it'll be available on Blu-ray and DVD at some point.

If you don't have Netflix it's worth taking out a one-month subscription just to see "The Lost Episodes" of The Clone Wars (AKA "Season Six"). The first four eps tie-in to "Order 66" and the last eps explain quite a bit regarding "Force Ghosts" and Yoda's meditations toward the end of "Revenge of the Sith".Here's an excerpt from the IGN Review:-----The season’s final storyline is the other big one, along with the first, in terms of touching upon major elements of the Star Wars movies and embellishing upon them and filling in some blanks - most notably how the Jedi Sifo-Dyas, mentioned in Attack of the Clones, figured into the Clone Wars and just how it was that Yoda and Obi-Wan were able to appear as “Force Ghosts” to Luke Skywalker, when none of the Jedi in the prequels ever displayed that ability. It’s been said before that The Clone Wars has been especially helpful in terms of the prequels, expanding upon plot points and better justifying some of the story elements and that’s certainly true in this case.The focus on Yoda for these final episodes is greatly appreciated, as the beloved Jedi master goes on a journey that takes him to one fantastic location after another and gives him some very important insight into the past and future of the Star Wars saga. If you can, avoid reading the voice cast for these episodes, as there are a couple of nice surprises. These episodes also contain some very poignant, effective scenes that underline the more tragic elements of this saga.----The full review can be found here:http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/08/star-wars-the-clone-wars-season-6-the-lost-missions-review

 

[RobertR]

It says a lot that there's a perceived need for so much extra material to "help" and "justify" prequel story elements. Good movies don't need that.