Today is my birthday. I am now 24 years old. I’m almost through a quarter century now. And how do I choose to ring in my birthday? I watched Episode 1: The Phantom Menace last night. I’m regretting it.
So here’s the thing; until last night, I had only seen this movie once, and that was in the theater, Summer 1999. Even though I was a bright-eyed, naive 13 year old who found the positives in every movie I watched, I still knew pretty quickly there was something rotten in the state of Tatooine. It turned me off of the Prequels and I didn’t watch the rest until years after they released. So when I decided to watch Episode 1 again, I was completely prepared to not like it. Apparently, I repressed most of my memories of this film. It is so much worse than I remembered.
I was going to try to write a review on the movie, but I just can’t. To be perfectly frank, this movie doesn’t deserve a review. So I’m just going to rant for a little while. Don’t like it? Tough, it’s my birthday.
The kid is terrible. Really, really terrible. I realize he’s a kid, but there is such a thing as a good child actor (hell, Natalie Portman herself gave a great performance in Leon: The Professional when she was a kid). It’s like Lucas had a raffle for the role or something (bingo cage and all) and this kid won. But it’s not just the acting, it’s the writing for this character. Anakin says “yippee” in a non-ironic way multiple times. One of the most iconic and menacing villians of all time and he’s saying, “Yippee”. It’s almost unnecessary to mention the groan/nausea-inducing characters of Jar Jar, Watto and the Federation Leaders (the latter whom are “totally not asian stereotypes”, they just pronounce their L’s as R’s). Sure, they’re awful stereotypes, but I’m almost more insulted that Lucas used the most unoriginal stereotypes ever. He can’t even be innovative when he’s being offensive. And even as the CGI is overused, the few actual puppets they used looked terrible. I’m all for a non-CGI Yoda, but the puppet looked like utter crap.
The real problem with this Star Wars film is that it isn’t about a war… it’s about the political crap and bureaucracy that happens before the war (and not even entertaining political crap). It’s not fun to watch at all and that includes the fight scenes. That, added with the introduction of midicholians, the insanely obvious Jesus allusions and the even more obvious bad guy (it’s Senator Palpatine, if you didn’t figure it out), make for a bad movie. How could this script have gotten through? It’s like Lucas wrote the first draft and thought, “Yep, this is good enough.” I’m starting to think the Star Wars Christmas Special was better written than this load.
There is so much more I can say about this film, and while I am tempted to continue, I feel my soul slowly dying the more I type. My faith in mankind is dissolving with every thought of the pod race.
Happy Birthday to me.
Wow! Did I inspire this heartfelt rant?!
I think I've only suffered through portions of this movie, I couldn't stomach all of it.
Very well said.
The movie blows. I was such a Star Wars whore that when I saw it I recognized some "cool" scenes and statements that were connected to the older Star Wars (IV, V, VI) stuff and that was fun. But when you think about it, it's only when they referenced the older Star Wars movies that I enjoyed the movie. In other words, the movie (Phantom Menance) by itself SUCKED! But when you incorporate it into the whole Star Wars universe… then instead of a 1/5 it becomes a 2/5 (maybe a 3/5 on a good day) 🙂 So, I definitely agree with you.
Kari, your comment actually got me to push her to see something bad. I've been pushing her to just watch a bad movie for a while. The next bad movie might be Jennifer's Body, but that would be getting her to feel fine about spending money on it. Katie hates seeing things that she doesn't like, well most of the time. Rifftrax helps.
I also want to get her to do a Rifftrax list and promote the new Plan 9 showing. She also wants to see Where the Wild things Are so we'll have to budget money out for that too.
And Frank, I was in a very similar situation with Episode 1. I was like 12 growing up really attached to Star Wars, but then I was like "Meh, it's ok." I would have said like 2 1/2 out of 5. Seeing it twice in the last two days has cemented it in eternity as a 0 (or a .5 on it's best day). There are so many plot holes it's not funny. The Plot itself is a bloated mess. And as you pointed out, the only reason to watch is to go "Hey that's the father of a later character."