Benfea Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 http://moviebob.blogspot.com/2012/02/escape-to-movies-phantom-menace-13.html Since the topic of how bad or good the prequels are is a frequent topic of discussion around here, Moviebob had what I thought was an interesting take on the whole thing. When the movies first came out, he hated the movies as much as anyone else, but now feels that Episode I was merely below mediocre and not The Worst Movie Ever like he once did. He then goes on to speculate on why he once (and so many others still do) have such a strong negative reaction to the movie. Whether you agree with him or not, I think you'll find it interesting, and if nothing else this may be a starting point for the same discussion from a different angle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkerus Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 I thought they were awful then and they are awful not. They aren't the WORST movies ever made but they make little no sense. I can stomach them, I just choose not to. Red letter media picks them all apart to the point where anything I say doesn't do it justice. You can't debate his analysis. Its spot on. But anyway, no, they aren't the worst just pretty freakin bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enterii Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 I don't think they were bad movies, it was just that as fans our expections for them and what we wanted to see set the bar so high that it whatever was made was never really going to be good enough. We were architects of our own misery, like spoilt kiddes we didnt get what we wanted and threw our toys out of the pram. I watched 1 2 3 this week at home and actually enjoyed them a lot more than I did when they came out. One thing I noticed that was fun, in the scene where obi and anakin are chasing the bounty hunter if you look carefully during the chase you will see an x-wing being chased by tie fighters in the traffic.. Ent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benfea Posted February 12, 2012 Author Share Posted February 12, 2012 I thought they were awful then and they are awful not. They aren't the WORST movies ever made but they make little no sense. I can stomach them, I just choose not to. Red letter media picks them all apart to the point where anything I say doesn't do it justice. You can't debate his analysis. Its spot on. But anyway, no, they aren't the worst just pretty freakin bad. The Red Letter Media analysis is mentioned in the above video essay. They're a must-see for those of us who never went to film school, but as Moviebob mentions, the film is bad, but hardly as bad as many make it out to be. It's yet another action movie with a big special effects budget with weak acting, weak script, weak character development, etc. In other words, it's like most of the drivel Hollywood produces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AbelMorvant Posted February 12, 2012 Share Posted February 12, 2012 (edited) I thought they were awful then and they are awful not. They aren't the WORST movies ever made but they make little no sense. I can stomach them, I just choose not to. Red letter media picks them all apart to the point where anything I say doesn't do it justice. You can't debate his analysis. Its spot on. But anyway, no, they aren't the worst just pretty freakin bad. I think the Red letter media thing, although very entertaining, is also pretty dumb in some parts. I'll make a couple of examples... First, there's a part where he implies that there is no main character. The movie seemed to follow Qui Gon for about 80% of the movie. We follow Qui Gon on the quest of settling the Naboo conflict. Can't describe the characters? Qui Gon is a very centered and focused Jedi and I think his faith in the force is beyond the order that the Jedi has established. While Obi-Wan is concerned about Qui Gons defiance not getting him on the council, it implies that Qui Gon doesn't care about any of that **** and is completely devoted to the force. Qui Gon meditating while being blocked off from Maul is a perfect example of his character. To sum it up, Qui Gon is a spiritual hippy while Obi-Wan is the kind of stuffy catholic type and although it's different from Obi-Wan's personality in ANH, he's also a lot younger and more stuck up. Amidala is a naive young queen, overly passive and almost reflects the liberals of this real world that believe that everything can be handled peacefully. Yoda just taking Obi-Wan's word on training Anakin not making much sense? Why not? He did it in Empire. We don't even need to watch the prequels to see the same thing happen in ESB, it was established in ANH that Obi-Wan has a ****** judgement of who they should or shouldn't train. "Hey, remember that dude I trained that turned out to be evil? Well, here's his son, train him too!" I don't care that people like the OT better, I don't care that they hate the prequels, I just hate how HARD you try to point out the stupid things in these movies while the original trilogy had even bigger more annoying the things. The way I see it: PT: Tons of small plot holes that I don't really care about anyways, such as the Trade's Federation reasons for being there. Why the hell should I care about small dumb **** like that? They're invading a planet, that's all I need to know about them being the bad guys, I don't give a **** I just want to see how Anakin and Obi-Wan develops. OT: Very few plot holes, but the plot holes they do have stick out like a sore thumb, such as the escape pod from a ship they just captured not being shot because it had "life signs" even though the thing they were looking for wasn't a life sign. Or the massive migraine of watching Ewoks fight Stormtroopers... We've watched an epic trilogy and THIS is the climatic ground battle of freedom? Damned teddy bears with rocks? How can you get so agitated with the lack of reasoning for the Trade Federations intentions but completely and fully accept this battle? Edit: I'd also like to say, if you're going to hate the prequels hate it for the REAL reasons why you hate it: Because it's not the movies you grew up with and quit trying to pretend that there could be any new SW movie that would live up to your expectations. That's the reasons why I love the original trilogy more, simply because it's the original. Also, it makes little sense to me to rag on any movie that's geared to be eye candy... Isn't that kind of the point of watching movies? If you care about the "emotional journey" and good dialogue and all that gay **** that plinket mentions, why the hell are you relying on movies or a sci-fi for that matter to satisfy that? Read a damn book if that's why you're going to the movies. The dude continually rags on the PT for not having creativity all while complaining about all the **** they put in there. You do realize that creating the imagery in the PT is a form of art right? Or ragging on the cherography while stating "no effort was put into it", I'd really like to see plinket get off his fat *** and pull some of the **** that Ray Park does in the film. Just admit you don't like it because it's not the original, that's perfectly fine, but quit pointing out things that can be pointed out in just about every single other sci-fi ever made. Edited February 12, 2012 by AbelMorvant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts