![]() The character (or Harrison Ford?) has so little motivation, Lucas resorts to "you're blind" to keep him flailing during the Jabba stretch. Leia spends the first half of the movie in a metal bikini and the second as the surrogate mother of an Ewok. Jedi hits a snag in the supporting-character department, too. ![]() Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Padmé > Han, Chewie, and Leia Phantom owns it with the reviled, midi-chlorian-rich Ani. ![]() Jedi fails because of a languid understanding of who’s watching. He looks up in awe of Coruscant, the Jedi Council, and this weird thing called "world order." Lucas goes so far as to gift his younger audience the chance to jump in a Naboo starfighter and dogfight. He spends most of the movie by adults' sides. The prequels are squarely for kids, and Anakin is every 9-year-old audience member's proxy. Star Wars '77 was a personal film for Lucas, art freak and speed junkie. Phantom Menace has a clear vision of what it's out to do. ![]() Really, where is Luke headed? What does he come to realize in the end? And then there's the whole "Leia's your sister" thing. He wraps up with an emotional goodbye with Yoda and little wisdom learned. But in the 1983 original trilogy finale, Luke is a clumsy Jedi-in-the-making. In Empire, Lucas' adoration for Akira Kurosawa put Luke on a samurai's path. His son's arc in Jedi is contained and tailored in Star Wars '77 - he escapes Tatooine and becomes the unlikely hero. Anakin's story is dead weight next to the Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan adventures, and his infatuation with angels is creepier than anything Damian cooks up in The Omen. To quote comedian Patton Oswalt, who eviscerated Lucas' decision to reduce the most formidable villain in movie history - aka Darth Vader - to a moppet: "Do you love Angelina Jolie? Does she give you a big boner? Well, then here's Jon Voight's ballsack!" Scrappy, clueless Anakin > Jedi wannabe Luke But in anticipation of this week's release of The Force Awakens, I feel compelled to give a point-by-point argument for why The Phantom Menace should no longer be regarded as the black sheep of the family. But in the grand Star Wars spectrum, the 1999 film's important role as both an individual cinematic experience and a spark plug to a densifying fantasy franchise gets undercut when we bag up Lucas' prequel movies and throw them overboard. The Phantom Menace is not a good movie, either. But while The Phantom Menace is, apparently, hot garbage that had its way with our collective fandom ("thanks for nothing, George!"), haters tend to give Return of the Jedi an out clause simply for being part of the original trilogy.ĭon't mistake this as critical praise. Both mistake doofy cuteness for "what kids like." Everything that ever went right and wrong in Star Wars went right and wrong along these two trilogy shorelines. Since The Phantom Menace's release 16 years ago, I've come to regard Jedi and Phantom as a pair. And The Phantom Menace, the bane of so many Star Wars enthusiasts, is the reason I know it. Jedi was the ultimate toy box.īut growing up is hard and admitting certain truths even harder: Return of the Jedi is not a good movie. The menagerie of critters and criminals at Jabba's palace, the gang's Ewok-filled mission on the Forest Moon of Endor, the Millennium Falcon finally flying into battle - I dug it all. I loved that its plot was both quicker and more jam-packed than Star Wars and that it didn't have the dark turn of The Empire Strikes Back that 8-year-old me wasn't ready for. For years, Return of the Jedi was my favorite Star Wars movie.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |