It's May 19th, 1999...

[Trekker4747]

Yeah Jar-Jar wasn't too bad. Even if his accent was a bit over the top and he was using words borrowed from Wayne Campbell ("Exsqueeze me" really, Lucas?) he wasn't... horrible. Boss Nagin or whatever weird chin blubbering was an... "intresting" choice.

But Jar Jar got bad when he became slap-sticky antic filled.

And cripes. That kid was horrible. Did we really need to see a Anikan as a goofy kid? And isn't a bit creepy that Padme later shags someone she met when THEY WERE A CHILD!

Pedophilia... of the FUTU... er, PAST!!!

The Pod-Race scene was awesome. Probably the best thing in the whole movie.

Too many "yipees!!!"

And Anikan accidentally flies a Noobian fighter out of a hanger, into space, into a enemy ship and BLOWS IT UP?!?!?!?!? What. The. Fuck?!?

Seriously. Lucas really though that was a good idea? He really thought people would be into it and on the edge of their seats like the trench-run in Ep1?

Really?

Seriously?

Lucas was way off his meds or surrounded by far too many Yes Men fellatiating him.

The "Battle of the Fates" between Obi-Won, Qui-gon and Darth Maul was pretty good. Even if Darth Maul was wasted bad guy.

"I'm Darth Maul. Fear me because I LOOK EVIL!!"

You know unlike when Darth Vader when we first meet him not only did he look bad-ass and evil (without having horns or devil makeup or fanged teeth) but he kills a guy who's only crime was letting Vader down!!!

Darth Vader was the emodiment of Evil.

Darth Maul simply "looked evil" and was a mild annoyance.

God. The more I think about it the more that movie stinks more than dog-diarrhea. You know, dog diarrhea? When you get it on your shoe and you try and clean it off and that stench pireces every pore in your nose and it smells like some released some shit-vomit in a garbage dumpster in a maynoaise factory in the middle of July after an entire row of pallets fell over?

Fuck you. Lucas.

And I'm not even a big Star Wars fan and I still think Lucas is a hacky bastard who completely fucked up his OWN FRANCHISE! By making it too damn simple, kiddie and masturbatory.

How ANYONE can watch Episode 1 and Episode IV next to one another and think that it's fair to have either one share the same wall of a DVD collection let alone exsist in the same franchise is beyond me. You might as well canonize Howard the Duck if you're going to accept that piece of shit prequel.

And this goes double for Episode II.

Almost as much for Episode III which was meerly a mild improvement. Sort of like the above mentioned dog shit/mayonaise factory scenario only in December rather than July.

I'll basically second this, except Jar-Jar was even more annoying to me.

Another problem was that everyone knew immediately that Senator Palpatine was going to become the Emperor as well.

It was also really hard to care about the majority of the new characters, especially since the majority of them are never seen much again in the rest of the prequel trilogy.

Seriously. Should Anikan's fall to the Dark Side be sad?

Moving?

Powerful?

Shouldn't your gut be torn out when he decides to kill all of the other Jedi and fights his own master? Shouldn't that THEN make his redemption by saving luke in ROTJ that much more powerful?

Why then in the prequels is Anikan such a punk? He's annoying kid in the first one, in the second one he's a punk who bitches about sand.

Sand people.

SAND.

You know, that mildly annoying stuff that exsists in abundance everywhere? That stuff that a planet was MADE of that he lived on. Stuff that he encountered so much that it shouldn't even register to him anymore. Does a guy who lives on a pig farm go around bitching about the smell of swine shit? No! Because he's used to it!

But all that aside, Anikan shouldn't be this punky bitch that kills an entire tribe of people. And we're supposed to be SURPRISED, upset and moved when he falls to the dark side?

If we're "meant to" watch these movies in numerical order (prequels first) wil l anyone care when Anikan falls to the dark side? No! Because he was a punk! A punk who killed women and children!

What. The. Fuck.

The first movie should have Anikan alread as a teenager in Jedi training, and he should be JESUS. He should be the epitome of everything the Light Side is supposed to be. He should be going around kissing sick children on their head and having that child walk again and be rich and powerful.

Not some whiny punk bitching about Obi-Won keeping him down!

The second movie should be about his prowress in the war but showing him fading. Giving him serpant to talk to or something. Then the third movie something should happen to push him over the edge. THEN the death of his mother, or Padme, or triple to Luke/Leia.

But NO. He was a punk. A punk you don't give a shit about because he never does ONE GOD DAMNED THING that makes you see him as this wonderful, great person whom you feel for when he falls to the dark side and descends into a path of evil and whom you cheer for when he redeems himself.

But nope. Forget all of that shit.

Have him roll around in the grass with a chick who was his goddamn babysitter and twice his age!!!, bitch about sand, slaughter women and children and cry about Obi-Won not letting him stay up late to watch Conan.



CHRIST Those movies were fucked up.

 

[T'Baio]

So...what should they be about?

 

[Davros]

You sit in a darkened theater as the words A Long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.. appear on the big screen for the first time in 16 years.

No, there were the OT SE releases... and they were better.

No they were not. The special editions sucked almost as bad as the prequals did.

 

[sidious618]

I was just a month shy of being 10 when this came out and I loved it.

I still love it, albeit in a different way, and I make no apologies for it. I think it's a great film and I enjoy watching it each and every time.

 

[Samurai8472]

I think we should have had hayden in episode 1 from the start. Yeah it would basically be "Luke Skywalker gone bad" for the trilogy but at least it would have better than

"You mean I get to go with you in your STARSHIP!"

"yippee!"

 

[Daneel]

^^^^^
I agree with that, except for the "we should have had Hayden" part... I'd rather we never had him at all.

Then again, that may be a bit unfair -- even some of the better actors in the PT had a tough time rising above Lucas' stilted writing and directing.

 

[Samurai8472]

Okay a better actor who we could have had for three consistent prequels. Also someone who could make suggestions to fix the bad dialogue.

"Can we fix the 'I hate sand dialogue?' "

 

[Cartoonist]

I was just about to graduate from college. Saw it with my girlfriend (now wife) at Oakland's Jack London Square late at night after having dinner at El Torito. The line wrapped around the corner. I really wanted to like the film, but the commercials had already made me weary of young Anakin, Qui-Gon and Jar Jar. I left the theater disappointed in those three, in all the lame kid dialogue that should've been left on the cutting room floor, the midichlorians, and in the lack of a good villain. I remember thinking Maul's makeup was cheesy. I recall thinking it was in many ways a wasted opportunity. But I also remember weighing that against one thing: after a lifetime of knowing Ben Kenobi as an elegant old man way past his glory days, I got to see Obi Wan in his bad-ass prime force-running and fighting like a god-damn ninja. I remember my inner seven year-old woke up during those scenes and I left the theater thrilled, just for having seen that.

 

[miraclefan]

To Quote Comic book guy ( Worst..Movie..EVER! I will see it another 12 times!)

 

[Blue_Trek]

Oh good times, with TPM, Star Wars was back after a whole generation had grown up.

For me the Darth Maul final scene is still the best lightsaber battle, especially at the very end between Obi-Wan.

Other scenes had awesome battle sequences, but for me that final one on one is the best, Obi is really ticked and it shows. Maul is cocky as ever. There is just something about that scene, that makes it the best for me.

And how the debate raged on after is Sidious really Palpatine or is there a clone or a twin.

And then the inevitable basher VS gusher backlash.

I am less forgiving of the Jar Jar fiascoe today than I was 10 years ago. The clumsy stupid alien thing was overdone.
In 2009 we can just imagine how much better TPM would have been without Jar Jar Binks.

A sidekick add on like the alien DEX Obi met in the AOTC at the dinner, would have been so much more entertaining and interesting and less distractingly foolish. Oh what could have been.

But I am happy that Lucas made the first of what would be the prequel.

I hope that one day another SW movie gets made for the next generation.

 

[Cmndr J Crichton]

I never thought of that! DEX could've definately made amore convincing sidekick than Jar Jar. The Kaminoans won't talk to just anyone, so DEX tags along to help out an old friend. I know who would've been a better Anakin than Hayden, and basically ended up playing a similar character in the Spider-Man Trilogy. James Franco. He was most certainly up for it. How could Lucas, and Gurland not choose this guy over Hayden? I think he would've made a more likeable Anakin than Christensen did. (Even though I still enjoyed whan Hayden brought to the movie.) For that matter, there were other kids in the audition for Young Anakin in Episode I That were far better than Jake Lloyd.

 

[Nardpuncher]

I really think that the internet and time have made this movie slowly become more and more hated to the point of absurdity.

What I want to ask of the people who really didn't like it: How many times have you seen it? I can understand twice (the first time, then one more time to see if it was really as bad as you thought) but any more than that and you're not really telling the truth about how much yuo hated it.
I think there may be hundreds of genre fans out there who say they hate this movie but have it on DVD.

 

[T'Baio]

For everyone who hates the romantic dialogue, I would love to hear what their first words were to not only the first woman you ever fell in love with as a teenager, but to the first woman you ever spoke to.

You say not as bad as Anakin? I say bullshit. We are used to kids who say all the right things or all the cool things or all funny things or all the perfectly scripted awkward things in media, when the reality is we all sounded just as fucking awkward as Anakin did. That was the point. With all his power, he's just an awkward, embarrassed kid.

 

[Broccoli]

^ Actually, I thought, as written, Anakin was more the smooth operator in TPM than AotC.

I actually didn't get to see TPM until later on in November when my teacher let me borrow his bootlegged copy of it (complete with squiggly-write subtitles!). I was underwhelmed. The story was interesting, but it just moved very slow for me. I knew it was going to be childish (Lucas even said that it would be to offset what he foresaw as the mood for the next two), but that didn't bother me.

I just think a bunch of people didn't know what to expect form it (or expect it to be exactly like the OT [which, you gotta admit, would have caused a lot of bitching too]). I see a lot of complaints in this tread over the movie (many well-justified ones), but those same complaints can be applied towards the OT as well.

Overtime, I have come to like TPM more and more. I think it is a movie that grows on you.

Also, the marketing campaign for that movie was fucking awesome.

 

[Trekker4747]

For everyone who hates the romantic dialogue, I would love to hear what their first words were to not only the first woman you ever fell in love with as a teenager, but to the first woman you ever spoke to.

You say not as bad as Anakin? I say bullshit. We are used to kids who say all the right things or all the cool things or all funny things or all the perfectly scripted awkward things in media, when the reality is we all sounded just as fucking awkward as Anakin did. That was the point. With all his power, he's just an awkward, embarrassed kid.

Well, I didn't bitch about sand, that's for sure.

Oh, and I wasn't hitting on a woman 10 years older than me.

Now, I'm going to rant about a 50's diner exsisting on an alien planet in the distant past, that itself is a distant future, in a distant galaxy that as far as we know has no Earth...

 

[SeerSGB]

One of my favorite movie for no other reason that it it just was fun to wait online, hang with some old and new friends, and just kick back and be a kid again.

The usher me and few other guys tortured ended up being my boss a few years later when I went to work at that theater.

 

[Chess Piece Face]

I was 26. I couldn't believe what I just saw. The biggest letdown in all of movies. And, ten years later, it really is a piece of shit.

You really can take about 20 minutes out of those 3 movies and have some interesting stuff leading up to A New Hope...and sadly, that's it.

And even more sadly, I'm not exaggerating.

 

[Small White Car]

I was a high school senior. I figured I'd see it after 2 or 3 weeks when the crowd died down.

Then, on opening day, a guy in my class had 2 extra tickets and sold them to me. I figured 'what the hell.'

And I'm glad I went. I think seeing it with a crowd THAT night was the one chance to really see the movie with an un-biased view.

It was ok. I was never a huge Star Wars fan, so I think that helped. I mean, the whole thing was better than all the Ewok stuff, right?

So it's certainly not the worst that SW has to offer.

 

[SeerSGB]

You know seeing all the people that are talking about being let down, I can see what you're saying, but really it was a "Star Wars" movie.

Despite all the various attempts by Lucas and the fans to add layers of meaning to them, they're just high-budget Republic serial era Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers fanfics with the serial numbers files off at worst, campy and flashy 1950s sci-fi movies for the most part. They're fun little popcorn and soda movies.

I think there's the sort of "rose colored glasses" effect that's happened over the years that's elevated the franchise into something it's not.

 

[Cartoonist]

You know seeing all the people that are talking about being let down, I can see what you're saying, but really it was a "Star Wars" movie.

Despite all the various attempts by Lucas and the fans to add layers of meaning to them, they're just high-budget Republic serial era Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers fanfics with the serial numbers files off at worst, campy and flashy 1950s sci-fi movies for the most part. They're fun little popcorn and soda movies.

I think there's the sort of "rose colored glasses" effect that's happened over the years that's elevated the franchise into something it's not.

What's happened over the years is something I like to call the "first trilogy was better than the second trilogy" effect. With the possible exception of Revenge of the Sith trumping Return of the Jedi. For me, anyway.

Sure, there are popcorn movies and Republic serial-type films, but that doesn't mean it's irrational to think some are better than others. That said, I can't agree with the depiction of the original trilogy as Republic serial-type films. I think that description works with Indiana Jones; but Star Wars OT was a big-budget, futuristic embodiment of Joseph Campbell's mythic journey. I'm not sure what the PT was.