19 April 2009

OMG why are Star Wars Eps. I and II sooo bad?

Crikey,

What stopped me from noticing the first time around? Finn want to see the Star Wars movies again, so we watched The Phantom Menace (TPM)(222) yesterday and we've just finished watching Attack of the Clones (AotC)(221) this afternoon. What a terrible start to TPM, the text is scrolling up the screen and already I'm yawning. Jar Jar Binks has not aged well, from his tennis ball head that actors can't seem to stare at, to his ridiculous "Uncle Tom-esque" mannerisms. And then in AotC he speaks to a whole senate of several thousand delegates?! And as for that film, from the text onwards... okay, if several thousand star systems are seceding from the republic and since the republic hasn't yet completely collapsed that implies several more thousand star systems are still loyal, exactly how many Jedi are there to police them? No wonder they are feeling overstretched...

Yes, seeing Yoda leaping around after Count Dooku is fun, but it's not that fun. And what is it with Jedi? Once they become teachers, they completely lose track of the Force? From Qui-Gon Jinn saying he felt nothing out of the ordinary while his padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi was jumpy at the start of TPM, to then completely ignoring the very obvious danger signals while his padawan Anakin was suggesting something might be amiss in the chase sequence with the assassin? Bah, still at least our great minds thought alike on a possible suggestion for why everything in the 1-3 trilogy seems far more advanced than thirty years later in the 4-6 trilogy. It's the war innit? If you think back to the glowing and glorious 1930s and then the austerity after the second world war, it's kinda similar, no?

Anyway, George Lucas: EPIC FAIL

ps. I know it's been ten years since TPM came out, so I possibly a little late with this opinion piece, but I'm not sure it can be said enough.

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