Phantom Menace is the best Prequel.

[The Mirrorball Man]

The bottom line, to me, is that TPM as one-third of a trilogy that had a LOT of ground to cover in a reasonable way to be successful just didn't "pull its own weight" in terms of adding to the overall saga.

Qui-Gon and Darth Maul die, we never see either again

Next time we see Anakin he's ten years older and a completely different character, personality-wise

Jar Jar Binks, who gets a LOT of screen-time in TPM, is progressively less relevant in each of the next two movies

So much stuff that's in TPM just turns out to be irrelevant filler

But you could say the same thing about Episode IV, couldn't you?
Tarkin, the main villain of the movie, we never see or hear of again.

The destruction of Alderaan has absolutely no consequence whatsoever.

The Rebels blow up the Death Star, the Empire just shrugs and builds another one.

Next time we see Ben, he's become an Exposition Ghost.

A lot of time is used to introduce us to Tatooine and its inhabitants, only for it to become the backdrop of the escape sequence in Episode VI.

 

[sonak]

The bottom line, to me, is that TPM as one-third of a trilogy that had a LOT of ground to cover in a reasonable way to be successful just didn't "pull its own weight" in terms of adding to the overall saga.

Qui-Gon and Darth Maul die, we never see either again

Next time we see Anakin he's ten years older and a completely different character, personality-wise

Jar Jar Binks, who gets a LOT of screen-time in TPM, is progressively less relevant in each of the next two movies

So much stuff that's in TPM just turns out to be irrelevant filler

But you could say the same thing about Episode IV, couldn't you?
Tarkin, the main villain of the movie, we never see or hear of again.

The destruction of Alderaan has absolutely no consequence whatsoever.

The Rebels blow up the Death Star, the Empire just shrugs and builds another one.

Next time we see Ben, he's become an Exposition Ghost.

A lot of time is used to introduce us to Tatooine and its inhabitants, only for it to become the backdrop of the escape sequence in Episode VI.

I don't disagree with this, it's just that as I wrote, ANH was designed to be, and works as a stand-alone movie. You're right that the story sort of "starts over" in ESB. TPM, as a prequel, had certain limitations, namely that it has to cover events and characterizations that we know lead up to the OT.

That, and ANH is just a better film.

 

[Mytran]

But you're forgetting the established, set-in-stone format of each STAR WARS movie. They all take place in a linear fashion, no flashbacks or jumps in time within the same film and each movie's story starts and finishes within one set time frame, as seen in movie serials of the past ... Each Star Wars film tells a story that takes place in a 1-2 week time period, in a linear fashion and that are their established format.

I'm not sure if that's an explicit limitation. Until ROTS no SW movie had a dream sequence or a montage sequence either, but it broke those rules.

Not to mention Padme's pregnancy. She grows a baby bump pretty quickly, if the timespan is no more than a couple of weeks!

 

[sonak]

But you're forgetting the established, set-in-stone format of each STAR WARS movie. They all take place in a linear fashion, no flashbacks or jumps in time within the same film and each movie's story starts and finishes within one set time frame, as seen in movie serials of the past ... Each Star Wars film tells a story that takes place in a 1-2 week time period, in a linear fashion and that are their established format.

I'm not sure if that's an explicit limitation. Until ROTS no SW movie had a dream sequence or a montage sequence either, but it broke those rules.

Not to mention Padme's pregnancy. She grows a baby bump pretty quickly, if the timespan is no more than a couple of weeks!

that's a good point. And it's not really clear what the time span of ESB is either with all of that training Luke does, but Han and Leia are supposed to be cooped up in the Falcon for.... what? weeks? months?

I can't believe Luke's training was only supposed to be a few days, was it?

 

[Whofan]

It's possible the training was supposed to continue if the films turned out to be a nine-film saga instead of being wrapped up in ROTJ. Instead we get Yoda saying he's pretty much completed his training-except for fighting Vader. In the films it seems you get a free pass as a jedi knight if you defeat a Sith lord and don't need to take "The trials" (One of the prequels vague concepts). Obi-wan defeated Maul and became a full Jedi, Luke confronted Vader/Palpatine and became a Jedi.


Some of the novels do have Luke self-train between ESB and ROTJ (Such as Shadows of the Empire), and also other novels/comics have him continually learning about the order.

 

[sonak]

It's possible the training was supposed to continue if the films turned out to be a nine-film saga instead of being wrapped up in ROTJ. Instead we get Yoda saying he's pretty much completed his training-except for fighting Vader. In the films it seems you get a free pass as a jedi knight if you defeat a Sith lord and don't need to take "The trials" (One of the prequels vague concepts). Obi-wan defeated Maul and became a full Jedi, Luke confronted Vader/Palpatine and became a Jedi.


Some of the novels do have Luke self-train between ESB and ROTJ (Such as Shadows of the Empire), and also other novels/comics have him continually learning about the order.

yeah, I'm sure he self-trains at various points, it's just odd that he has months, at most of formal training before becoming a jedi, but the prequels make it seem that padawans have years and years of formal training before becoming one.

Obi-Wan had trained with Qui-Gon a long time before defeating Darth Maul.

Luke had trained with Obi-Wan and Yoda combined for maybe a few months, hard to tell.

 

[DarthPipes]

But you're forgetting the established, set-in-stone format of each STAR WARS movie. They all take place in a linear fashion, no flashbacks or jumps in time within the same film and each movie's story starts and finishes within one set time frame, as seen in movie serials of the past ... Each Star Wars film tells a story that takes place in a 1-2 week time period, in a linear fashion and that are their established format.

I'm not sure if that's an explicit limitation. Until ROTS no SW movie had a dream sequence or a montage sequence either, but it broke those rules.

Not to mention Padme's pregnancy. She grows a baby bump pretty quickly, if the timespan is no more than a couple of weeks!

There's a three-year time span between AOTC and ROTS. Just like there was a three-year time span between ANH and ESB, something that's not mentioned in the movie.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

But you're forgetting the established, set-in-stone format of each STAR WARS movie. They all take place in a linear fashion, no flashbacks or jumps in time within the same film and each movie's story starts and finishes within one set time frame, as seen in movie serials of the past.

I'm not sure this is an explicit limitation so much as it is coincidence. The films have preferred to update the viewer on past events through exposition or the opening crawl. They simply never had a reason to show a character's origin and then jump ahead.

A weakness of the prequels is their obvious lack of planning.

Yes, the first film was a one shot, but as others have pointed out the film wasn't planned as a trilogy. They didn't know it would be a success, so they had one film to set up the characters and universe, and have a complete arc where the main character defeats the bad guys. Like The Matrix, one could easily view the original film and by the end get the impression that the protagonists had won, and that the destruction of the Death Star was the beginning of the end for the Empire.

Lucas clearly tried copying the one shot structure of the original for TPM by having the film revolve around a single battle with a celebration at the end, but that was a complete waste. He knew the film would make tons of money and that his trilogy would be completed, so the lack of planning was inexcusable.

 

[Eddie Roth]

Lucas clearly tried copying the one shot structure of the original for TPM by having the film revolve around a single battle with a celebration at the end, but that was a complete waste. He knew the film would make tons of money and that his trilogy would be completed, so the lack of planning was inexcusable.

That was what I thought yesterday upon seeing the film again for the first time in years. It was deliberately made to stand alone, despite the fact that an entire trilogy of prequels had been planned. This, and I would point that out as the main reason TPM didn't resonate so well with fans, hurts the film's conversation with the audience. After 16 years of waiting for new Star Wars, I'm sure people were thrilled (as was I) to see the familiar ingredients: spaca battles, lightsaber fights, Jedi, some of the familiar characters, etc. But they probably had trouble identifying with the main conflict here: the planet of Naboo (unfamiliar) versus the Trade Federation (unfamiliar).

It's as if you ask a friend to tell you about his summer vacation and he then goes on to describe in much detail how he booked his flight, what it was like at the airport, what he packed into his suitcase... but he never gets around to telling you about the actual vacation.

I think Jar Jar and lil' Ani are elements of the film people latched onto to explain why they were disappointed - with some good reason, I might add: It is overly geared towards children. Once you know that, however, you can get some enjoyment even out of a goofy character like Jar Jar. I see him as one of the idiosyncrasies of the film, like Ewoks in ROTJ or Yoda in TESB (and I'm sure there were people in 1980 who felt that SW should not feature a cuddly puppet in a central supporting role, no?)* Not for everyone, but part of the charm.

The bigger problem is the one mentioned above. In 1999, the story told in TPM was not exactly what fans had waited for for 16 years. From today's perspective, the whole thing works much better. It's a self-contained story which ticks off all the Star Wars boxes, and you know the "important" stuff will be told later on... in that sense much like ANH indeed. But since that couldn't be anticipated in 1999, the film, and the entire PT by extension, built a bad rap that it never fully lost again. Future generations may in fact get into Star Wars through GL's preferred, numerical viewing order and find TPM a nice-enough action adventure to begin this saga, and come to love the far-better other instalments even more later on. Most of us were spoiled by the superior OT coming first.


*I love Yoda, by the way.

Maybe th

 

[CorporalCaptain]

In 1980, having been reared on Sesame Street, I was very worried about Yoda - until I saw the film. Except for a few enjoyable laughs when Yoda is first introduced (e.g., Yoda vs. R2) they played Yoda straight and serious. I found Oz's entire performance to be brilliant and compelling. IMO/YMMV.

I agree with others who have pointed out that the Yoda puppetry in The Phantom Menace was sub-par Yoda work. I'm not sure exactly why this is so.

 

[Whofan]

Could be because Oz was retiring from puppets around that point due to back problems. He actually hasn't been doing the Muppets since around that time-although he still did the voice for Yoda in the next two films (Although not the Clone Wars cartoon).

Also the puppet sculptors mostly lacked the input of Stuart Freeborn (Although he did visit them at one point). Freeborn based Yoda largely on himself-just look at any photo of Freeborn-the resemblance is uncanny. Reportedly Freeborn was also the inspiration for Pixar character Geri (From Toy Story II and Geri's game)

 

[Dream]

Could be because Oz was retiring from puppets around that point due to back problems. He actually hasn't been doing the Muppets since around that time-although he still did the voice for Yoda in the next two films (Although not the Clone Wars cartoon).

Also the puppet sculptors mostly lacked the input of Stuart Freeborn (Although he did visit them at one point). Freeborn based Yoda largely on himself-just look at any photo of Freeborn-the resemblance is uncanny. Reportedly Freeborn was also the inspiration for Pixar character Geri (From Toy Story II and Geri's game)

The problem was that tried to make Yoda younger which only made him look like a completely different person. Yoda was only 30 years younger than the version from ROTJ which was 900 years old. They should have made the puppet look exactly like the one from ESB. They seemed to have realized their mistake and made a much better CGI version for AOTC, ROTS, and for TPM on Blu-Ray

Oh yeah, I imagine there were plenty of complaints from fans in 1980 about Yoda being a puppet. Mostly would be "We want to see a real Jedi Master and waited 3 years for this?"

 

[CorporalCaptain]

"We want to see a real Jedi Master and waited 3 years for this?"

I never heard anything like this.

 

[EnsignRicky]

Once I got past the fact that he sounded exactly like Grover, (which was about five minutes) I was hooked.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

Oh yeah, I imagine there were plenty of complaints from fans in 1980 about Yoda being a puppet. Mostly would be "We want to see a real Jedi Master and waited 3 years for this?"

I was way too young in 1980 to know for sure, but I imagine there was. However, the puppet was so well done and realistic that I imagine most complaints were baseless.

Besides which, many of the aliens in the original Star Wars - the ones at Mos Eisley - were puppets. I think the films went over the deep end in RoTJ with the massive number of puppets in Jabba's palace, but that is just my opinion.

 

[DarthPipes]

Another thing I thought might have been a problem with TPM Yoda is that the Yoda puppet in ESB and ROTJ was used in smaller, dimly-lit sets. Frank Oz did an amazing job but where the puppet was used might have hid some of its limitations.

 

[Avon]

saying the phantom menace is the best prequel is like saying diarrea is the best kind of shit.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Once I got past the fact that he sounded exactly like Grover

SHHHH! We weren't supposed to notice that...!

 

[TremblingBluStar]

Once I got past the fact that he sounded exactly like Grover

SHHHH! We weren't supposed to notice that...!

I didn't notice.

Probably because The Muppets were a bit before my time, and I didn't care for variety shows as a kid.

Either way, it could have been worse. He could have sounded like Fozzie Bear!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Another thing I thought might have been a problem with TPM Yoda is that the Yoda puppet in ESB and ROTJ was used in smaller, dimly-lit sets. Frank Oz did an amazing job but where the puppet was used might have hid some of its limitations.

Yes, indeed, good call. The lighting in the Jedi Council chamber was much brighter, and also direct sunlight was shown falling on Yoda as I recall.

Besides which, many of the aliens in the original Star Wars - the ones at Mos Eisley - were puppets. I think the films went over the deep end in RoTJ with the massive number of puppets in Jabba's palace, but that is just my opinion.

The laughing blue snoopy went way off my deep end.

Once I got past the fact that he sounded exactly like Grover

SHHHH! We weren't supposed to notice that...!