I have seen Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace several times in the past month.
I’ve listened to Griffin & David’s phantom podcast, I’ve watched the RedLetterMedia Mr. Plinkett reviews, I’ve listened to the Chapo commentary track. I’ve heard every criticism of the film said in many different ways by many different people, and I still can’t stop watching Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.
I recently watched a staged live reading of the script with esteemed actors such as Tony Hale and Haley Joel Osment (highly recommend this one btw)
Surely by now I should be tired of everything to do with Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, but no. Every time I watch the film I’m every bit in awe as I was when I watched it in theaters at the age of 6.
Every choice confounds me, every scene surprises me anew with its sheer ineptitude, every frame oozes incompetence. I should know the film by heart, but I never have any idea what’s coming next, it’s as if my memory is erased every time a new terrible scene begins.
As a species we have just barely begun to scratch the surface of what’s wrong with this movie. I don’t think we will ever come close to fully unpacking what George Lucas has done here.
Please, Lord forgive me for what I’m about to do, which is press “play” on Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. This is the last time, I promise. I just need to get this out of my system and then I’ll be done forever. I can stop anytime…
oh god, oh fuck I’ve had the film playing on a loop for the past 48 hours. I can’t tear my eyes away, I haven’t eaten or slept, all I can do is watch Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, wallowing in my own filth until I inevitably die of exhaustion like in Infinite Jest. These are the last words I will ever hear:
Mesa caused mabbe one, two-y lettle bitty axadentes, huh? Yud-say boom da gassar, den crashin der boss’s heyblibber, den banished
— Jar Jar Binks
wait no, I’ve seen the light, I know how to break free, how to escape this endless nightmare. I’m going to watch Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones
This post is mostly a joke, but in all seriousness I’ve decided that Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace is an asbolute masterpiece.
(but not for the reasons why some racist dorks on Reddit think it is)
This film is a slap in the face to everyone who has ever enjoyed a Star Wars film, and by god do they deserve it. George knows exactly what he’s doing here. He has nothing but contempt for the hogs who have made him his fortune, and I find that genuinely admirable. Every shot of this film is Lucas saying:
"This is what you want, you fucking piggies? Here you go, fuckface. You’re gonna take your slop and you’re gonna hate every second of it, but you’re still gonna shovel that shit down every time, and you’re gonna pay me for it.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace is George Lucas’ treatise on everything that’s wrong with the Hollywood system. It’s a man reckoning with the evil he has wrought on the world. It’s the most deeply cynical film of all time.
Kind of sucks these movies got rehabilitated through the memes and Disney fucking up early on in it’s reboot of the franchise that now SW dorks see the prequels as good.
what’s truly ridiculous is that they weren’t even that mad about The Force Awakens. the nerd-rage didn’t fully kick in until The Last Jedi, when someone finally tried to do something interesting in one of these fucking movies. I don’t think that movie is good per se but it probably could have been if they just let Rian Johnson go full freak mode and do whatever he felt like
but Rian Johnson RUINED my childhood!!!1. no you fucking nerd, George Lucas did that, on purpose and you thanked him for it. selling the franchise to Disney was all part of his master plan to piss off the most insufferable media-brained dorks on the planet and he’s laughing all the way to the bank
Luke, Kylo and Rey were the best part of the film. The nerd rage over Luke’s portrayal is
Luke is such a non-character in the original trilogy, he’s really just an avatar for the male nerd audience to project themselves onto, so they couldn’t handle Rian Johnson giving him any moral ambiguity or depth
the movie also came out around the start of MeToo and I think the response was basically “oh, so now we gotta cancel Luke Skywalker too?”
Nerd Mad Mad Mad at Rian Johnson: “Luke would never give up and fuck off to a planet to live like a hermit, a Jedi would never do that! Also, I’ve never heard of trauma!”
Force Ghost Obi-wan and Yoda: [kick at the dirt, look uncomfortable, avoid eye contact]
George Lucas: Meh.
I hate the rehabilitation bullshit. If you want to enjoy them ironically or rewatch the handful of decent action sequences then that’s fine, but the whole “actually, the sequels weren’t as bad as people said” thing is infuriating. They aren’t good. They’re bad. They were bad when they came out, and they’re still bad now. They haven’t “aged well” or “found a place in the current media landscape” or whatever. They suck, we spent two decades analyzing precisely how and why they suck, and the issue is closed.
I don’t know if this comment is serious or not, I don’t realy think George was that competent and able to “metagame” like that. He probably just wanted to appeal to kids because he knew the OG fans were too old and likely poor and if SW is to survive in the long term it would need a bigger multimedia platform and a much younger audience. He just failed for many reasons.
But in case this is serious, this also isn’t entirely wrong, perhaps it is true because sadly this is exactly the same attitude from CBS wrt Star Trek. It is known at every opportunity that despite JJ/Kurtzman paying modest lipservice to the old Trek the fact is the writing room and producers all absolutely hate and loathed old Trek and the old fans.
They constantly pat themselves on the back for being the science show, the rainbow inclusiveness hope BS show etc. All while completely ignoring that old Trek did that 30-50 years ago and they demand you praise them for it. “Oh no people don’t like nuTrek? Must be MAGA chuds!”. Basicaly r/startrek is how the producers see themselves.
So yeah, maybe George did have that sort of contempt for old fans, I don’t doubt it.
Yeah it’s probably not actually true, but I’ve convinced myself it is because I can’t cope with the fact that a man would make some of those choices thinking he was making a good movie, my brain won’t accept it
especially when you consider the special editions, it’s hard to believe that man is motivated by anything other than spite