The Phantom Menace review

[grantlogan]

I liked how he referred to jarjar as a rabbit. Did anyone send in for a pizza roll?

[Omniyoji]

http://www.newlaunches.com/entry_ima...mb-450x355.jpg

pretty much

[Alderaan]

The part where he mentioned that the original trilogy fight scenes were more about emotion rather than flash was spot on.

I've actually had people tell me how much better the prequals are because of that and i have to restrain myself from lashing out.

I cracked up right from the start with the whole "if you think Empire is the worst episode" remark as i know people that actually think that =/

[Cleverness]

Loved the episode 3 review. He didn't cut off to the random stuff like basement scenes as much, which I felt he kind of overused in the Episode 2 review. Just enjoy it because he points out the bullshit in a logical way while actually making it enjoyable. Never noticed the constant "look out the window" bit or shot-reverse shot that plagues the prequels till the review for example. I actually liked the final fight in Episode 3 but it really did drag on for far too long, the Vader/Luke fight in Empire went on for abit but it wasn't just flashy lightsabers the whole time, they were using the environment and there was emotion from beginning to end at the revelation. Anakin/Obiwan started off kind of intense then it just got boring and turned into more flashy stuff.

And watching the behind the scenes with Lucas just sitting on his ass staring at monitors is pretty fucking ridiculous, no wonder the actors looked lost all the time.

[Moss]

Yeah that review actually makes me feel bad for Hayden Christensen. There is a clip where Lucas is trying to give him direction, and Christensen is just looking at him and not responding like "...ok"

[Shnaklaha]

I'm so glad that i'm not the only one who likes these reviews.....They really do highlight the good and the bad (mostly bad) of the prequels in a fairly obvious fashion....I could never quite put my finger on the reason why i couldn't remember anything about the trilogy when i watched it (only thing i did remember was the podraces in ep 1, but that's only because the legos for the podracers were awsome and i made awsome robots out of it). I also liked his avatar review...thought that was also spot on.

One of my old roomates was the type of guy who accepted what happened in the movies because aparently "The books explain it".....well i didn't read the fucking books and if it doesn't make any fucking sense to me then its not properly explained to 90% of everyone else. I told him the little droid battle ship flight thing when quie gon jin (idfk how to spell it) and obi wan hid on the ships in ep1, and everything about the stupid involved with it....he just said "It makes sense to me" which was his response to everything that he didn't understand but wanted to be a smug ass while disagreeing with everyone. I think it was around that time when i just stopped trying to engage in intellectual conversations with him....

Also, General Grievous (or w/e his name is) was the most badass thing in the Clone Wars animated series (on CN, the cartoon/anime one), but in the movie he's a total pansy. Made me sad.

[Elcura]

The part where he mentioned that the original trilogy fight scenes were more about emotion rather than flash was spot on.

I've actually had people tell me how much better the prequals are because of that and i have to restrain myself from lashing out.

I actually liked the choreography in the prequels. The fights were flashy, and I liked that. But that's all I liked, I could watch the fight out of context and enjoy it, but when you see it in the movie he is exactly right. The fights don't feel real, they feel choreographed, which I never got from the original movies.

[Cleverness]

Alot of people tried to argue that the choreography had to do with the fact that in the original trilogy everyone was either old or untrained for awhile(Luke) so they couldn't pull off the flashy stuff. But the Force was never about just a lightsaber. Yoda pulled out the X-Wing from the swamp easily at this old age, and Vader wasn't known for gutting people with his lightsaber. He was known for choking a bitch from a distance, across fucking space(or the ship, I don't remember if he Force Choked that 1 guy on the screen from outside the ship or from somewhere inside it). Yoda's fight with Palpatine had more going for it because he didn't rely on just his baby lightsaber, they were using other aspects of the Force more readily during the fight.

[Deftscythe]

Alot of people tried to argue that the choreography had to do with the fact that in the original trilogy everyone was either old or untrained for awhile(Luke) so they couldn't pull off the flashy stuff. But the Force was never about just a lightsaber.

Plinkett really nailed this aspect in the episode 2 review. The section was actually called "George Lucas ruins both the lightsaber and the force in a single scene," and he referred to how having Yoda fight with a lightsaber, and making him have to do acrobatics to make up for his size actually makes the lightsaber a hindrance rather than a tool and how making his size a limitation robs the force of mysticism and makes mastery over it more like a DBZ power level than some spiritual connection to the universe.

[Alderaan]

Plinkett really nailed this aspect in the episode 2 review. The section was actually called "George Lucas ruins both the lightsaber and the force in a single scene," and he referred to how having Yoda fight with a lightsaber, and making him have to do acrobatics to make up for his size actually makes the lightsaber a hindrance rather than a tool and how making his size a limitation robs the force of mysticism and makes mastery over it more like a DBZ power level than some spiritual connection to the universe.

Perfectly said.

[Trichocyst]

Another thing about young Lucas that I'm not sure got mentioned was the influence his peers had on him. He had people like Stephen Spielberg and Martin Scorsese telling him when the writing sucked and how to fix it. I forget where I read it, but I remember something about how many drafts Lucas needed to write because he had these creatively superior people critiquing him, forcing him to be better. Lucas has a grand vision as a story teller, but sucks realistic humanity out of the details and dialogue. After becoming wildly successful, successful enough to work outside of the studio system (and really all of Hollywood) as much as he'd like and after Empire wasn't quite what he was looking for you can tell that he decided then and there to just do what he wanted for the rest of his life.

[Maguspk]

Yeah that review actually makes me feel bad for Hayden Christensen. There is a clip where Lucas is trying to give him direction, and Christensen is just looking at him and not responding like "...ok"

LOL I remember this part. He's basically telling him about how he rewrote his lines and added some more stuff and Hayden is just gives a short one word or so response. I laughed out loud.

[ZarakiKujata]

Another thing about young Lucas that I'm not sure got mentioned was the influence his peers had on him. He had people like Stephen Spielberg and Martin Scorsese telling him when the writing sucked and how to fix it. I forget where I read it, but I remember something about how many drafts Lucas needed to write because he had these creatively superior people critiquing him, forcing him to be better. Lucas has a grand vision as a story teller, but sucks realistic humanity out of the details and dialogue. After becoming wildly successful, successful enough to work outside of the studio system (and really all of Hollywood) as much as he'd like and after Empire wasn't quite what he was looking for you can tell that he decided then and there to just do what he wanted for the rest of his life.

He still is influenced by that group, its just he's gone his own way completely because he has the power to. Spielberg being actually richer then him, also does w/e the fuck he wants, and the two are still collaborating, i.e. Indy movies, and scene of them talking about Gungans in the Ep1 review.

Cute story about Lucas and Scorsese, is that Lucas visited the set of Gangs of New York, amazed at the 19th century NYC they had recreated. He then turns to Scorsese and asks him if he knows they can do all that shit with CGI nowadays, why build the set?

edit: I mean Scorsese has gone off the deep end too in many ways. He had studios to contend with for shit like Taxi Driver. He's done w/e the fuck he wants for the last 10-15 years though.

[Kerberoz]

Awesome; been waiting for this forever and it didn't disappoint.

I never realized just how differently all the lightsaber battles would have gone if someone in the Star Wars universe had invented the lanyard.

[kuronosan]

Agreed on all points. I love his other critiques too. Too bad people in the business aren't this brutally honest. We might actually have more good films.