My reactions to The Phantom Menace...and keep in mind, I was 14 were:
....well, I was going "the advanced buzz didn't like it? this is okay...wow, Jedis fighting droids!"
...basically, everything until they got down to Naboo and met Jar Jar, I thought "wow, this is Star Wars'
Some people hated that "the opening scrawl contained too much information"....hey, I don't think so; I mean they had to say "the Republic is in decline, its taxing the outlying trade routes as a result, but this is making the corporations like the Trade Federation upset that can afford their own private armies; war is looming"
...the "heavy asian accents" for the Neimodians....I kind of thought were odd when I first heard them. But you know what? I said; hey, the Imperials sounded "British...even though its space and there's no Britain"....so I let that go.
basically, the opening fight scene was just great.
Then....something about Jar Jar was just "nails on chalkboard". Was it the character design? That at least, no. Nothing inherent in the design. But his entire voice and pidgin dialect....it didn't sound "Jamaican" to me or something, as some have said, it just sounded "REALLY ANNOYING" nails on chalkboard. The result was that...I could tell they obviously were trying to market the movie to children to buy merchandise. I was amazed.
But the real problem was just how BAD the script was.
And to top it off, the child actor they got to play Anakin was TERRIBLE. Now I realize there are few good child actors....but this is STAR WARS and you SETTLED For that?!
The parts that weren't cliched were just bad scripting.
it's....the actual basic outline of the story, on paper, wasn't actually bad. "this native character called Jar Jar who'se kind of bungling but helps them" isn't an inherently bad idea; but it's as if they turned everything up to 11
10 years later and I STILL don't know why its called "The Phantom Menace"!
Was Episode Two better? Marginally! but by then....okay TPM's saving grace was that the special effects really were cool to watch, showed what CGI could really start to do; but that "wow factor" was wearing off by the second installment.
Hayden got better as Anakin in episode 3...they actually let him get ANGRY. I maintain that Hayden isn't exactly the worst actor ever, but seriously look at the lines they were feeding him and the direction; it was just awful scripting.
Padme consistently felt like "Leia Redux". The only reason to watch was that Ewan McGreggor was great. Samuel L. Jackson didn't get enough to do.
***really, the only prequel episode I actually feel the need to even...even watch on TV by leaving my TV on in the background when spike runs them, is episode III.
****What the Star Wars prequels did was make us all really upset....seeing as in the next few years of the early 2000's, Star Wars stunk and so did Star Trek. The two biggest franchises went under.
Meanwhile, it set us up for wanting a NEW series that "gets it right", which I really think was "Lord of the Rings", because they actually had a good story (it was after all, a successful book first so it was already tested for quality), good scripting, good direction and acting, good special effects BUT the special effects SERVED THE PLOT instead of taking its place, and respect for the source material.
At least...at least Star Wars was a good reason to go to the movies, franchises are fun.
But we've been in a slump....Pirates 2 and 3 didn't live up to the original, 2007 was the year of the Threequel, thought 2008 was a bit better...well, very good, we had Iron Man then ***DARK KNIGHT*** its been a while since I was CONSUMED by a "movie franchise", like when X-Men exploded onto the scene.
I fell out of love with Battlestar Galactica when season 3 started and I realized "they're making this up as they go along and there is no "Cylon Plan" to the point that they're picking Final Five Cylons based on who would be most shocking, breaking all of their own rules and flat out needing to retcon certain things".........and then I said "maybe its just that BSG is a TV show, and like Farscape season 4 before it, inherently its hard to tell stories on the scale they want because the network will always interfere with their creative freedom...maybe its better to focus on movie franchises again"
****so this summer looks big though: they're starting a new Terminator trilogy set IN the Future War, we've got what's for all intents and purposes X-Men 4 centered on Wolverine....and STAR TREK is back!
You know....all the way up until when I read the advanced reviews, I was saying "it'll be a decent movie but not make us want to "fall in love again"
but the Harry Knowles AICN reviews just LOVED it and said it brought tears to his eyes it was so mind-blowingly amazing and left you hungry for MORE and the return of Star Trek.
