The Phantom Menace: Was it That Bad?

[Brian]

Or...Start with Episode II, Make II into a III Clone Wars/The Fall hybrid and Make III delve more in to the Jedi Purge w/ more of Vader and the birth of the Empire.

Another great idea.  It would have been cool to see the purge with Vader and the Empire hunting down the Jedi and taking control.  Plus, you could see the beginnings of the Rebellion and maybe touch on some of the OT supporting characters to see how things got started.  I guess the upcoming television shows (toon and live action) are going to delve into the eras we'd like to see on film (Clone Wars and Rise of the Empire), but as much as I'm looking forward to them - it would have been nice to see it in movie-form.

I too can see why Lucas did things the way he did, at least as far as Anakin's story goes, but it just didn't quite work for me either.  I do enjoy all of the movies in the Saga enough to watch them somewhat regularly, but sometimes - particular with TPM and AOTC - I have in the back of my head "these could have been better".

[Diddly]

I'm one of the VERY few who actually likes TPM. I like it so much that I think it's the best of the prequels. (ROTS ranking second and AOTC in dead last, for those interested) Why I think this way, I'm still not sure, and it probably has something to do with the fact that I was 10 when it came out so I saw a lot of myself in Anakin and didn't think of Jar Jar as annoying.

[Phrubruh]

I've got to agree with what was said about Jake Lloyd. I remember watching the screen tests for his part and though that they picked the worst one. That first kid should have gotten it. Either choice would have nailed the part much better than Lloyd could have possibly done.

As for the death of Qui-gon, I though they made a terrible mistake killing Qui-gon off. They could have easily turned Qui-gon into the Count Dooku character for the second movie. That would have made the duels between Dooku and Obiwan great forshadowing for the Obiwan/Anakin duel in ROTS. It would have been great to see Anakin kill the guy that freed him from bondage and got him on the road to be a Jedi. That would have been more great foreshadowing for when Vader kills Obiwan in ANH. Otherwise it just marginalizes Qui-gon.

Finally Jar Jar's voice and manner shouldn't have been the way it was. If he just had the personality of Boss Ness it would have worked alot better. I would have loved to see Boss Ness be the senator in ATOC. Palpy could have used a mind trick on Boss Ness just like Quigon did in order to get him to give Palpy emergency powers.

[Keonobi]

Watched TPM last night and I have to say that I like the music in it second only to ESB.  I'm not just talking about Duel of the Fates, the whole sound track just seemed richer.  I'm not a music producer or a music-phile (I don't remember what the real term for that is..), but the music just seemed to reinforce the feeling I had when I first watched it in the theater, how struck I was by the wealth and refinement of parts of the Star Wars Universe.  I mean, who here hasn't marveled at the size and scope of the Trade Federation and their ships.  The music seemed to really capture that lush and rich side of things.  Its not that the music was terrible in the others, they just didn't capture the tone the same way, for me that is.

[Scott]

My son and I watched the first half of TPM this weekend and I probably haven't watched it since right before ROTS came out.  I just can't get over two things:

Jake Lloyd
Jar Jar Binks

Lloyd is awful, really really awful.  He reminds me of the scene from Pee Wee's Big Adventure where Pee Wee gets a part in his life story at the end of the movie.  His acting is so bad and he mouths the words of the script as the other actors are saying them.  He's that bad...I know Lucas took a huge leap of faith in writing the story but he really should have been better involved in the casting.  I remember seeing the casting spots of all the rest of the Anakin tryouts and they were all bad.  I get the point of the story, making him to be as innocent and pure as absolutely possible to make his eventual fall to darkness all the more powerful.

However, Jar Jar is even more awful, almost 9 years later the CG work is great, the pidgeon English is awful and having him being the butt of all of the gags in the movie doesn't work on any level.

I still dig the Neimoidians.  The duel at the end is great and so is the Gungan/Droid battle.  I also really like the Pod Race but hate the Racers.  Meh, I don't hate it but it really isn't that good

We finally caught the second half of the movie last night.  My son really enjoyed the last half (while I knew he was bored with the first).  The whole middle act (minus the podrace) is sooooooo slow that I think this is another large problem.  The duel and battle still are a lot of fun and whoever said the music was great is spot on, it is phenomenal. 

[Darth_Anton]

The Phantom Menace is actually the most solid of all the prequels. It's got a very concise, self contained story that's told very well. I put it on par with Return of the Jedi. Sure it's got flaws, most notable is that the Jar-Jar character didn't grow, but compared to the very sloppy story telling of the other prequels, it's a masterpiece.

[EpicGon]

EpI has the merit of introducing battle droids to the saga, then these droids became updated in the next ep 2 and ep 3

[CookieeMonster]

One word "YES".

[David]

I got bored and watched this last night.

I think this movie is the best of the three prequels, and I may even go as far as saying I like it better than ROTJ. The story is actually pretty solid, and the battles and music are amazing. I don't actually mind Jar Jar too much, but it might help that I really like him in the cartoon so far. I think the only huge problem I have with this movie is Jake Lloyd. He is by far the worst actor in the Star Wars films, and the parts with him can be EXTREMELY painful to watch. 

Other than that, this movie is really not that bad, and I really like Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan and their relationship, Darth Maul and his pure evilness, and Sidious/Palpatine and the Trade Federation. Yoda's also great in this movie, I think he kinda sucked in AOTC and ROTS because he simply lacked his OT mannerisms. This could very well be because he was still a puppet in TPM, but I really think something happened with his transition to CGI that changed his character for the worse.

Overall I think a lot of the bashing TPM gets is really unwarranted, it's a pretty enjoyable movie, especially compared to its PT counterparts.

[Brian]

Just thought I'd bump this topic up again, since today is the 10th Anniversary of The Phantom Menace.  Although it has generally gotten bad mouthed pretty consistently since then, I think many of us were pretty excited in the lead up to this movie - and maybe initially coming out of the movie as well.  Personally, I've kind of had ups and downs with this movie.  When I first saw it in the theatre, I really enjoyed it a lot.  After awhile, I sort of started to find it boring (aside from the lightsaber duel/ending), and didn't find myself watching the DVD very often at all.

Now, I've grown to appreciate it more again - and don't mind it all that much.  It does seem like, with a few smallish changes, it could be a much better movie.  It might still be my least favorite of the Saga overall, but I do still enjoy it for what it is - and I'll always remember the hype building up to this day ten years ago.  It was a good time to be a Star Wars fan.  I still think that Darth Maul - while underused - was one of the niftiest concepts from the prequels, and the lightsaber battle and "Duel of the Fates" track are two of the best of the saga.  I can still remember the chills of seeing the first trailer(s) as well.  The Official Site has a lengthy feature up today of the "production notes" of TPM.

[JesseVader08]

I can actually tolerate Jar Jar, the part I dislike the most is the ending.  The movie builds up to the big battle at the end and Anakin destroys the Control Ship, thereby winning the space and ground battles simultaeously.  Neat idea, but the whole problem is he does it all completely by fluke.  He destroys the ship without actually knowing what he's doing, so the entire battle is won by accident??!!  I can't imagine a more empty victory or disappointing ending. 

[Brian]

I can actually tolerate Jar Jar, the part I dislike the most is the ending.  The movie builds up to the big battle at the end and Anakin destroys the Control Ship, thereby winning the space and ground battles simultaeously.  Neat idea, but the whole problem is he does it all completely by fluke.  He destroys the ship without actually knowing what he's doing, so the entire battle is won by accident??!!  I can't imagine a more empty victory or disappointing ending. 

Yeah, I have a bit of a problem with that ending as well.  It has been discussed on the forums here before, but TPM probably could have been better served to have Anakin be a bit older.  You'd have to change the story around a bit, but it might have improved a number of areas - and changed that ending so everything wasn't so "accidental".

[THE STAR WARS NERD]

happy 10 annevershery to episode 1 [ my fav. movie] did anyone pick up the speacial star wars insider issue? It had darth maul on the cover [ for all u maul fans]

[A.J.]

Actually, I like all the movies and I even like Jar Jar. I've discovered that I'm more of fond of the prequels than the OT.

[I Am Sith]

My sons love watching this movie and considering they are 4 & 5 years old, I guess you would say that Lucas found his target audience.  It's entertaining for them and there is enough action to keep them interested (that is until they get to Coruscant and it becomes the 'talking part' that we need to advance past). This was also the way I introduced them to Star Wars a few years ago and it managed to hook them.  They are now totally into The Clone Wars and have watched all of the other movies with the exception of ROTS.

Looking back on it, I was disappointed in the movie when it first came out only because I was expecting so much.  Now having watched it a couple dozen times with my kids, like others have mentioned, the only things I don't like are Jake Lloyd and Jar Jar.  Natalie Portman's fake English accent also drives me nuts at times but thankfully she doesn't use it often.

I really love the ideas that others had about finding Anakin as a teen and starting the movie there.  That would have been a great way to start the film and would have paved the way for a live-action Clone Wars movie, however, I think that The Clone Wars cartoon is doing a good job.  All in all, TPM isn't my favorite, but it did a good job setting the stage for what we've been experiencing for the last 10 years.