It's my third time watching 'The Phantom Menace' then talking about it.
And Heaven behold there is something far worse than any Star Wars film. My reviews. The one I'm currently writing will most likely be bad. The last two I wrote were horrible. The first one was so incoherent that even my stupid brain couldn't make sense of it. And the second one was pretty bad too.
So how much worse can I make this review?
So I'm going to use the Star Wars movie to talk about my opinions on the entire franchise. That is the original 78 'The Star Wars: Review' and everything I've seen since then.
Phantom Menace:
I've heard a lot of people bad-mouth this movie from the start. The text crawl has a bunch of gibberish about tax tariffs and trade federation's. Honestly it doesn't talk about it too long and then text crawl is shorter than most. And if I'm going to be perfectly honest I never like to text crawls. I don't like him in this movie I don't like him in any other Star Wars film. They feel tacky and a bit lazy.
So the planet 'Naboo' which I call Planet Byzantine (mostly due to their architecture.) Send these religious monks as ambassador towards this Trade Federation that's blockading the entire planet. Where ever given a good reason as to why the planet is being blockaded or what it is that's the blockade is affecting, I guess it doesn't matter.
Is it like the movie Dune? Is there some weird spice that the Federation won't give to this planet of Imperial Hippies? Just who is at fault? We're told and shown that the Federation is supposed to be the bad guys at the beginning of this. But we never see any proof of that. They're told to invade the planet later on, but only because this ''evil'' Jedi guy tells them to do so. If anything you could call them weak-willed.
This leads me on to a tangent.
In the newer Star Wars movies were told that there is a group of evil Jedis called the Sith. I don't know if this was some sort of Ancient Order that came about as a response to the Jedis or if they were once part of the same order like the Catholic and Orthodox Churches breaking up after the (1054) schism. Maybe they were part of the exact same group but separated by time and tradition turned them into different organisations like Romulans and Vulcans.
As far as I'm concerned they're exactly the same. They both have questionable ethics they seem incredibly antisocial and they carry around swords. No one else carries around swords. I know some people like to bad-mouth him for their weird attire but that's just what everyone in the Star Wars Universe wear's. They all dressed like a bunch of Franciscan monks.
Okay so the movie continues to go on and we get a bunch of talking between the Queen of the Byzantine planet and her little Council. They're going on about the Trade Federation wanting to invade their planets, losing communication and debating if it's all true because the Trade Federation would lose their tariffs or license agreements or whatever it is they have for the greater Galactic Republic.
And now I've come to a realisation. This is Dune! That weird 80s movie with the emperor and the weird space monster and the resources revolving around spice. It's the same kind of thing. It's this big universe of planets and various creatures and a bunch of treaties and Deals going on that us the public have little to no information on. Because we're new to all of this. So none of it means anything. It's just gibberish. I'm watching Dune again!
The way I watch this movie has changed. Instead of being upset with unestablished characters or awkward storytelling I'm kind of just going with it. Like none of it really matters, we just need to see if the Jedi can make it to the underwater world full of the Frog people. Where we meet everybody's favourite character Jar Jar Binks*.
It was here when I first watch the movie that I was getting excited. I like the idea of the underwater city and this kind of secondary force on the planet that could help with the invasion against this Trade Federation. Then you have the ship going through the ocean escaping all the bigger fish. There's so much here that could have been utilised.
I often wonder how much better this film would have been if they had just stayed on the one planet. We didn't need to go to Planet Tunisia (that's the desert one) and the city planet was a complete waste of time they're only there for a few minutes.
If they just spent time on the original Planet getting to know the queen and Her counsel along with the gungan people and their hierarchy. Maybe have some internal conflict between the two that they have to over come in order to defeat the external thread.
Or who knows. Maybe I'm completely wrong, perhaps this movie was just doomed from the start. Part of the reason I like this movie is because it felt so different from the old Star Wars films. I almost wished it was called something else altogether and they had completely divorced themselves from Star Wars.
Create a new universe, a new story. Make something fresh and different. Of course if that happened nobody would care about this movie. The only reason anybody talks about this film now is because of its logo. If you took Star Wars out it would just be another Weird Science Fiction film thrown on top of a pile of an ever-growing Mountain fantasy gibberish.
I have tried 3 times to talk about this movie and various other times to just watch it. I have tried to give the Star Wars movie the benefit of the doubt. To try and not join the bandwagon of Star Wars prequel bashing. But this really isn't a good movie. The stories incoherent, it's not that interesting to watch and I get this feeling that the people who made it weren't entirely sure what they were supposed to do with it. It's like there were six different people all directing their own film and then they stuck it all together at the end and try to make sense of it. Some of the CGI Works some of it doesn't.
The beginning of the film always gives me hope because there's this odd feeling that something might work. There's a story here, there's an interesting world with intriguing characters. I almost wish somebody would make an animated film just focusing on this planet without the Jedi or the stupid Trade Federation and just do a underwater fish expiration kind of thing. Why the heck not, they've done weird things in Star Wars.
More gooberfish less of everything else. We also get the only good line from our Ginny Jedi. ''There's always a bigger fish.''*I don't understand the one Jedi's goal. He mind controls the leader of the fish people to give him transport. They didn't tell him to go through the planets core because it's the fastest way to get to his destination. He's been told by jar jar that it's kind of a trap to be going through the core because it means you'll probably die.
Star Wars 2 attack of the Clones and the other one:
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is the one film that I have a little hope for. The one film that I keep trying to watch to prove that there's something decent in this god-forsaken prequel. Then the other two Star Wars movies are just pointless to me. I've never really cared for these films. Attack of the Clones I think is one of the most boring things I've ever seen and although Revenge of the Sith or whatever it's called is technically better it's still a bit incoherent. We start the movie being introduced these characters that have never been shown before. And we're left thinking did we miss a film in between the two in the three?
And I was thinking about this while sitting in the theater. I never think about this stuff while in the theater. Usually the experience is good enough to distract me even in the most uninteresting and badly-designed of films. The Dark Knight Rises is full of problems. But I was enjoying the hell out of it while in theaters.
The only thing I remember of interest from Attack of the Clones was when Obi one's character goes to this weird water planet with the strange grey aliens that look like they should have been in that Stephen King A.i. movie.
That's pretty much the only thing I remember about that movie. Oh and Christopher Lee showed up for a few minutes and then stuck Obi-1 in a gladiatorial arena with some weird monster creatures. That was kind of an interesting scene.
Everyone's tied up against these poles and they have to survive these horrible monster things. Once again there's a neat idea in the film.
Why not make a Gladiator movie revolving around strange Star Wars creatures. It kind of worked in Jedi (Star wars VI) when Luke had to fight that Rancour thing.
Star Wars ''77'':
I did a review of this already. It's a self-contained story revolving around a simple premise. Young protagonist along with old wizard and a walking trash can have to stop a group of Nazis from using their Doom weapon to destroy a rebellion. It has Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness in it. And some wonderful laser sound effects.
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
This is the best made Star Wars movie and the only one out of all these films I would consider to be a proper Film. Everything else feels kind of cheesy and fun where is this feels a lot more professional.
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
It's an okay Star Wars flick. I personally find the Forest bits to be really boring and the desert scene although interesting is kind of inconsequential to the film. Especially when you consider that the only reason for to exist was to get Han Solo back who then does nothing really for out the rest of the movie.
This might sound insane to some people but part of me kinda prefers The Phantom Menace to this. The Phantom Menace despite everything else that's wrong with it is relatively interesting throughout. Even when they're just talking about stupid Trade Federation crap. I can't say that about Return of the Jedi.
Star Wars: The Force awakens
It's the second best made Star Wars movie. The cinematography works really well, it has good pacing overall it's a pretty decent Star Wars flick. Personally I don't care for it. I found it incredibly boring and uninteresting. It's Made Me disinterested in watching any of the newer Star Wars movies and I just stopped caring. Maybe the newer movies have gotten more interesting. I just don't know.
And let me make this doubly clear. This is not a bad movie. It's a well-made movie. It's one of the better made movies. It's a reboot, it's designed to get people really interested in Star Wars or they get people who are never interested to begin with on the gravy train. It does it's job just fine. The actors are good, the situations are find, I just don't like it. That is all.
In case all my rambling and stupid comments weren't good enough here's a handy little chart to show exactly where I placed the Star Wars movies. Because art is like mathematics and you can just place things in exact categories.
Professional:
I. Empire Strikes Back
II. Awaken
III. Star Wars
IV. Return of the Jedi
V. Revenge of the Sith
VI. The Phantom Menace
VII. The Clone Wars
Personal:
I. Star Wars
II. Empire Strikes Back
III. The Phantom Menace
IV. Return of the Jedi
V. Revenge of the Sith
VI.The Clone Wars
VII. Awaken
Personal category should go without question. It's what I personally prefer.
Professional on the other hand is just how well a product is made. It's cinematography camera techniques directing acting soundtrack everything a halfway decent critic should be able to point out in a movie review.
And this has been my 3rd attempt to watch and review 'The Phantom Menace'. Like the other two times it fell apart and evolved into rambling.It's not a good movie. I don't even really enjoy it and yet I keep coming back to it. Like a bad habit.
Now that I've covered all the Starwars movies (that I've seen) I can move on to more interesting endeavors. Like the ''Star Wars Episode 1 pod racing video game'' or making a fourth review for 'The Phantom Menace' where maybe, just maybe. I can actually summarize my opinions on that movie, make it through the entire film and give you a proper review. But I doubt it.
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