Incredible 70min review of Phantom Menace

jaykhunter · 05-04-2010 08:53PM

Sad Professor wrote: »

Watched the AOTC review first and half way through the TPM one now. Great stuff.

Nothing. He said the exact same thing while making the prequels. Unlike Spielberg, Lucas is pretty much the same guy he was in the 70s. He was always a crap director who was more interested in special effects.

The first Star Wars was an accident. Lucas was forced to do multiple drafts and then his friends (Huyck and Katz) did a significant uncredited dialogue revision. The original cut was still a disaster but his wife Marcia (an excellent editor) did a lot to rescue the film in post-production. Empire's brilliance is mostly a result of Lucas's collaboration with Kasdan and Kershner, both of whom thought they were making a completely different movie.

:eek::eek::eek: I'm amazed that people hate the Prequels so much that it casts doubt on his original trilogy! WOW!

fcussen · 05-04-2010 09:48PM

jaykhunter wrote: »

:eek::eek::eek: I'm amazed that people hate the Prequels so much that it casts doubt on his original trilogy! WOW!

Well, as the review points out, Lucas was given complete creative control of everything for the prequel trilogy and just at look how horrible those films are.

The Empire Strikes Back, these days considered the high point of the entire franchise, is the SW film that features the least input from Lucas.

Edit: just found this on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kurtz)

During filming of The Empire Strikes Back[3] George Lucas suffered an apparent panic attack, accusing the filmmakers of ruining his movie. He followed this by taking the existing footage into an editing bay and cut together a fast-paced action version of early scenes, excising plot-oriented content, then showed it to Kurtz and other members of cast and crew, who reacted with laughter. Lucas later admitted this was a mistake...Even after the financial success of The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas regarded The Empire Strikes Back as a failure.

Basically GL was just this emotional retard who was looking to come up with as much toy tie-ins as possible. The spiritual story elements and more grown up stuff in Empire just went completely over the head of this guy who wanted to show people some cool looking but emotionally uninvolving space fights.

Duggy747 · 05-04-2010 10:46PM

George Lucas will go to the grave with the Star Wars' contract firmly gripped in his dead hands.

I've never understood the hee-uge appeal of Star Wars, I liked the original trilogy (especially Empire). Thought the 2nd trilogy was naff, too much CGI where CGI clearly wasn't needed, and boring. Well, AOTC was ok and ROTS was the best of that trilogy.

I understand & respect the average guy popularity and significance of the 1st 3 in cinema and pop culture but all the hardcore-ness of fans drives me away like a rancid tampon.

Sad Professor · 05-04-2010 11:53PM

I don't buy the story about Lucas considering TESB a failure. Kershner always said that Lucas stepped back and let him do his thing. In editing, Kershner wanted it slower paced, Lucas wanted it faster and they found a compromise. I wouldn't believe anything Kurtz says. He got sacked because he couldn't handle the budget.

I've never heard George say a bad thing about Empire. In fact, I remember him saying he thought it was a nicer film because of Kershner. The decision to go dark was definitely Lucas's. Kershner was the one who kept trying to add humour.

I blame Jedi's problems on Kasdan not giving a sh*t. The funny thing is Lucas showed him the script for TPM years later and asked for his opinion. He handed it back and said it was great. Can we completely blame Lucas for the prequels when even his own friends couldn't see what was wrong with the script?

Oh and David Lynch is a legend:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDB8Q15iUIE

fcussen · 06-04-2010 12:35AM

I'm sure a David Lynch film with Ewoks would have been a masterpiece.

mewso · 06-04-2010 08:13AM

Part 1 of this review has been withdrawn because:-

This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by The Cartoon Network, Inc..

quarryman · 06-04-2010 08:41AM

mewso wrote: »

Part 1 of this review has been withdrawn because:-

working for me.

jaykhunter · 06-04-2010 11:09AM

Good thing there's media hoarders like me! Re-upped part 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bye5e-v6_EQ

Roar · 06-04-2010 11:14AM

this is what Mike (the guy who does the reviews) said on their forum

I am trying to contact youtube's copyright department to verify the claim. The rumor is that another youtube user made the claim and then uploaded part 1 to his own page to get traffic there. Although I'm not sure on this. Still looking into this matter.

Additionally another video of mine was flagged and removed for "community standards" my Care Boars video. So, enjoy my page while you can. It seems evil forces are at work to get my account deleted. Yeah youtube!

bonerm · 06-04-2010 01:04PM

Galvasean wrote: »

Yes, there are two disk editions with the original cuts and the special ones.

FYI cuts presented on these disks aren't the precise original cuts (if you know what I mean?). By which I say the 1997 versions were not the first set changes made to the original trilogy. In fact GL has been been tinkering with these movies in small ways ever since the first one appeared in May 1977 and iirc the version on the discs is not 100% the first run theatrical cut. IIRC the version on the DVD set are a copy of the original laserdisc version, so what you are buying is whatever version of the trilogy GL was happy with circa 1993.

Also more importantly for anyone considering buying them, the discs are presented non-anamorphic format so that might annoy some potential viewers.

//

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_changes_in_Star_Wars_re-releases

podgemonster · 07-04-2010 10:36AM

The 70th minute review really made me think of the South Park episode where Lucas and Speilberg rape indiana jones, tarnishing forever a wonderful trilogy!

youcancallmeal · 07-04-2010 10:46AM

Great review. Some laugh out loud moments too, in particular the overuse of lightsabers.
It made realise how badly they f*cked up with the prequel trilogy. The main point of the entire review seems to be Lucas just didnt understand what made the original trilogy so popular.

Roar · 07-04-2010 10:54AM

part one back up..

pixelburp · 07-04-2010 11:19AM

Man it brings me back to when I came out of the cinema in 1999 bleery eyed and not quite sure what to think, having just seen The Phantom Menace. Like a kick in the balls, at first I didn't quite register the pain and emotional reaction required, but very soon it dawned on me what a steaming, embarrassing turd I just watched

I think I'm a little behind the rest of the internet, because I only now watched these reviews. I always figured the prequels to be steaming piles of excrement, but it's only when someone goes into eye-watering detail - almost scene for scene - that you realise just what train-wrecks these films were.

I didn't think much of the scenes in the reviewer's basement though. The first couple of times were darkly funny, but it just got way too weird after a while, and I skipped past them all.

pwd · 07-04-2010 02:32PM

I'll add another testimonial that these are funny and worth watching, although you wouldn't expect them to be.

mikhail · 08-04-2010 01:33PM

I think he overdid the basement scenes too. They're funny as very quick cutaways to break up the review a bit, but some of them are two minutes plus in the AotC review.

Pretty savage review too. I particularly liked Yoda's speach about the nature of the Force, mixed up with some terrible equivalent dialogue from the prequels. It really hammered home how much better written the original trilogy was.

jimi_t2 · 08-04-2010 03:08PM

I watched the whole thing, but the best bits are in the first 3 parts when talking about the role of the protagonists and how IV - VI were a homage to the old epic black and white buck rodgers style, the four part cut where they get the girl (with willy wonka!) and the beautiful dissection of the opening scene - rule one of film making: SHOW the audience and let them work it out rather than TELL them.

He kind of goes on a (justified) rant about Liam Neesons character for the latter half of the review, but he was really SPOT on with the terms of the podracing bet. I mean wtf? Not to mention the fundamentals of the trade agreement, the invasion of naboo and the fact that you don't see a single naboo citizen bar 20 or so pilots and the queen + crew on the whole planet.

The avatar review is only about 20 minutes and makes some very salient points while sidestepping the whole ''Dance with Wolves/Pocahontas'' debacle. Well worth a watch. Basement scenes are nonsense though, smacks of trying to be funny.

(As an aside, this reminded me of Yahtzee's game reviews; which are only about 3 minutes long but are similarly scathing, if not a tad crude - well worth a look if whether you've much of an interest in games or not

EDIT: He swears like a civil servant after the last budget; NSFW

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/12-MOH-Airborne

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/420-Fallout-3

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/37-Mailbag-Showdown )

][cEMAN** · 08-04-2010 05:45PM

I think the best point of this review is that while he spent time showing that you couldn't describe the characters of the Phantom Menace, showing they really had no character, he was able to make a review character through speech alone with more depth. You could better describe the reviewer's character than any of the characters in Phantom Menace.

Sad Professor · 08-04-2010 09:31PM

Yeah, the characters were the biggest problem with the prequels, really. They completely lacked personality. And their interaction with each other was very poor. I mean Obi-wan and Padme barely even spoke in 3 films.

And while there's something perversely satisfying about seeing the plot of these films get picked apart, I think he goes too far in some cases. I doubt even Empire's plot wouldn't hold up to that much scrutiny.

pixelburp · 08-04-2010 09:52PM

Funny thing, I was at Clash of the Titans this evening (it's rubbish as you'd guess), but as I watched it, the Phantom Menace review was running through my head: specifically the part where he describes the template for the "perfect" blockbuster / adventure plot, and how straightforward & timeless it is. Sure enough, Clash of the Titans, if nothing else, managed to cobble this template together. Generic yes, but the bones were that ticked all the boxes. It really does hammer home the ineptitude of Lucas' script that even the most generic & mediocre of movies can at least script a competent plot.

fcussen · 08-04-2010 10:09PM

A theory I have is that Lucas didn't see the lack of a clear protagonist as a problem because "American Grafitti" worked fine without one. However, breaking the genre-conventions is only a good thing if it improves the film.

Sad Professor · 08-04-2010 10:28PM

In an earlier draft of the script of TPM there actually was a clear protagonist in Obi-Wan. In that draft, Qui-Gon only came into the story on Coruscant. Obi-Wan did everything (recruit Anakin, etc) that Qui-Gon does in the finished film. There were also hints of a love triangle between him, Padme and Anakin.

Then for some inexplicable reason, Lucas decided to expand the Qui-Gon role by giving all of Obi-Wan's dialogue to Qui-Gon and created a new apprentice Obi-wan. This is why Obi-Wan is standing around doing nothing for the whole film. Lucas just wrote him into the background of every scene and gave him some exposition to deliver.

bonerm · 08-04-2010 10:37PM

fcussen wrote: »

A theory I have is that Lucas didn't see the lack of a clear protagonist as a problem because "American Grafitti" worked fine without one. However, breaking the genre-conventions is only a good thing if it improves the film.

Agreed. He's clearly very proud of the way the plot for American Grafitti splits off into four seperate stories yet still works. This is a method that was virtually unheard of at the time in mainstream movies.

In fact if you look a the star wars movies they get more and more convoluted & tangental with each new installment. Ep4 has one clear and simple ending, Ep5 splits off into two seperate stories, E6 splits 3-ways and Ep1 4-ways.

loveissucide · 09-04-2010 03:24AM

The problem with The Phantom Menace is that it's ultimately a prime example of megalomania in action, whereby George Lucas got to indulge his every whim, and nobody around him could muster up the courage to criticise him. And it shows in how boring, self-indulgent and decadent the film is. It's like a sci-fi Heaven's Gate or At Long Last Love, which is to say the work of a director who has finally been swallowed up by his own ego and convinced himself he can do now wrong by surrounding himself with Yes men.

random punter · 12-04-2010 04:32PM

Lucas should be tied to a chair Clockwork Orange style and be forced to watch these reviews.

kowloon · 12-04-2010 05:01PM

I opened this thread feeling all smug with the intention of posting a link to a better review, turns out it was the same review as linked in the first post.

mewso · 12-04-2010 05:32PM

Not too many 70 minute reviews of the phantom menace knocking about. Surprised you thought you knew of a better 70 minute review

Little Alex · 08-05-2010 09:39PM

Watched all seven parts back-to-back earlier today and loved them! He's absolutely spot on.

One thing he didn't mention was that the costumes and war toys in the original trilogy are way better: Stormtroopers (Clonetroopers just aren't as good), Scout Bikers, the Death Star, AT-ATs, the Super Star Destroyer, etc, etc, etc. Nothing in the prequels looks anywhere near as cool.

In fsct, my favourite scene was at the end of Episode III with the proto-Imperial Officers and (CGI) Tarkin, Vader and The Emperor lookng out at the skeleton structure of the Death Star.

Roar · 09-10-2010 02:32PM

Revenge of the Sith review is on the way!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf1wcnwhA9o

And if you haven't already, check out his Star Trek review. Hugely enjoyable, funny, and accurate!

http://redlettermedia.com/star_trek_09.html

Goldstein · 10-10-2010 06:31PM

Roar wrote: »

Revenge of the Sith review is on the way!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf1wcnwhA9o

And if you haven't already, check out his Star Trek review. Hugely enjoyable, funny, and accurate!

http://redlettermedia.com/star_trek_09.html

I still love First Contact but having seen all his star trek reviews he makes some excellent points and, unbelievably, despite watching all the Star Treks for 20 years, I defer to greater knowledge.

I maintain though (And would have a limitless amount of evidence challenge him on) :
Star Trek 2009 was a pile of lowest common denominator shiney muck.

Although strangely, I could live with it after he relegated it from Science Fiction to Science Fantasy, that was a well observed concession.

Incredible 70min review of Phantom Menace

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