PHANTOM MENACE memories

[Steve B]

You could make a strong argument for each of them being the worst, but CLONES was the only one that I walked out of the theater thinking wasn't bad (until I saw it again six months later and couldn't figure out why I had ever thought that; I guess because I saw it with a really enthusiastic audience), so I've always put it ahead of the other two for that reason.

I actually saw it twice and I thought it was WAY better then MENACE.  The it was on cable and I couldn't sit though more the 10 minutes at a time. 

[Tarrik Dane]

I just saw it in 3d, because fuck it why not. I will say that its probably one of the best 3D conversions I have seen. Usually they look like flat paper people seperated from the background to me. That being said, dont expect the same amount of incredible depth that AVATAR had. The effect is pretty subtle and not distracting. It didnt make the movie any better, although it made the pod-race almost bearable. I'm interested in seeing how the original trilogy looks now.

[ExpendablesFan]

Ooph.

[BrianLynch]

3D was good but muddled.  The movie was boring but muddled.

[Dobbin]

I do think that MENACE is a few re-writes and directorial choices from being a good movie. I think the 2nd one was so egregiously terrible and confusing and bad and retcon/fan-fiction stupid (ruining whatever might have been cool about Boba Fett in EMPIRE) and looked the worst. The last one at least did not LOOK like a 2-D videogame greenscreen fest all the time.

I really, really was super-invested in wanting to like the 1st one. I honestly loved the "duel of the fates" battle and tried so, so hard to let that be the lever on which I pushed down upon the obviously not-good stuff. It wasn't until the 2nd movie and how awful it was that I stopped defending the 1st.

[Randy]

I have nothing of consequence to add here but the biggest thing hurting JOHN CARTER is how CLONES-like it looks.  Poor Disney.

[Steve Lilley]

I honestly loved the "duel of the fates" battle and tried so, so hard to let that be the lever on which I pushed down upon the obviously not-good stuff.

I still think that battle is great. I wish it weren't inter-cut with some of the dumbest space battle sequences ever, but it's still really good. And Ewan McGreggor has one of the best "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" cries ever.

Flash forward to REVENGE OF THE SITH, and he even lost the ability to do that. That last battle goes on for a shocking amount of time. At one point, they just wave their lightsabers at each other as if they just like hearing the noise it makes when it whips through the air. They don't even try to hit each other for a few seconds. They're just kind of showing off.

[BrianLynch]

Well, Ray Park helped choreograph the cool stuff in Episode 1, no?  And he had nothing to do with 3, so...

[Steve Lilley]

Yeah, that's a really good point. I hadn't heard that, but it makes sense. He is in the movie, after all.

[Taitdog]

I know there are a million and one things about PHANTOM MENACE that should bother me, but the thing that has always stuck out to me is the age difference between Anakin and Amidala.  If I was asked for only one thing to add to a script rewrite, I'd make them both the same age.

[sean]

Between this and Wolfe's point about Liam Neeson, it suddenly occurs to me how much of the stuff that actually worked in the first one is gone by the other two.  I never thought of it quite that way before.

[LpF]

Flash forward to REVENGE OF THE SITH, and he even lost the ability to do that. That last battle goes on for a shocking amount of time. At one point, they just wave their lightsabers at each other as if they just like hearing the noise it makes when it whips through the air. They don't even try to hit each other for a few seconds. They're just kind of showing off.

I actually didn't mind that so much.  It felt, to me, less like "showing off" with endless flourishes and more like...I dunno how to put it.  A combination of knowing each other so well and, well, Jedi shit.  I know I'm not explaining it adequately, and I also know I'm not going to change anyone's mind on that anyway, but I actually liked the majority of that final duel. 

There was actually very little in Revenge of the Sith that I didn't like.  Clones I tried SO hard to like just because I really thought it'd be better than Phantom Menace, but whenever I think back on it I'm just like "For fuck's sake, it was a 20 year old woodenly acting like a spoiled toddler and a bunch of video game sequences, including a Mario-style platform sequence" and I'm disgusted with myself for liking it so much at first.

[Luke Erik]

 

There was actually very little in Revenge of the Sith that I didn't like.

I feel the opposite, but I absolutely love the emperor in that movie for all the wrong reasons. He's so damned goofy looking and silly that I can't help but laugh when he basically does anything.

[Dalton]

All this CLONES is better than PHANTOM, but not as good as SITH or whatever stuff is crap.  They're all uniquely horrible.  They each invented new ways of being bad.

[ScottE]

Revenge of the Sith is the only Star Wars movie I've never paid to see. A friend of mine had a bootleg DVD of it with a squished-up aspect ratio and numbers running along the top. Also we made fun of it the entire time, so between that and the fact that it didn't cost me money that one's my favorite of the crappy trilogy.