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“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." Watching the Star Wars films
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<blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 324569" data-attributes="member: 23"><p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 18px">THE PREQUEL TRILOGY</span></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p> <p style="text-align: center"><strong><span style="font-size: 22px">Episode I: The Phantom Menace </span>* </strong>(1999)</p> <p style="text-align: center"></p> <p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYTRhNjcwNWQtMGJmMi00NmQyLWE2YzItODVmMTdjNWI0ZDA2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTAyODkwOQ@@._V1_.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 531px" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p><p></p><p>Well… expectations were well and truly lowered for this one. This proved a great starting point as I actually surprised myself with how much I found to enjoy.</p><p></p><p>Let’s acknowledge the elephants in the room before moving onto pleasantries:</p><p></p><p>Yes - Jar Jar Binks is a pimple on the nose of this film. He’s there, and it’s difficult to pretend otherwise. It could be argued that he’s simply a natural evolution of the more puerile elements of the original trilogy, be it Ewoks, Wookies, Hutts or cutesy little droids. However, he does seem far more reminiscent of those exasperating Disney sidekicks that ruined otherwise great films (think Robin Williams’s Genie in <em>Aladdin</em>, or Eddie Murphy’s Mushu in <em>Mulan</em>, released while <em>The Phantom Menace </em>was in production). There’s no denying he’s a pain and the film would have been improved without him, but there are levels to this: I didn’t find Jar Jar as irritating in this film as I found Chewie** and Artoo in the original trilogy. Perhaps this is by virtue of the fact that <em>Phantom</em> was perhaps a little more overtly cartoon-like in its presentation, and so Jar Jar simply feels like a necessary evil that can be somewhat tuned out.</p><p></p><p>The cartoon-like aspect leads me on to the next downside of this film: there is an abundance of CGI. Almost every action scene is packed with it, with some scenes being very clearly <em>entirely</em> computer generated. A scene with hordes of robots breaking through a force field to attack defenders with electronic shields was probably the most glaring of these, but the most testing - by virtue of its endless length - was the pod racing scene which simply felt like watching a computer game: a very good computer game, but still obviously entirely fake. I’m still unsure how exactly Anakin won since I mentally tuned out midway through the sequence, as one does when being subjected to any kind of motor racing for prolonged periods.</p><p></p><p>Again, though, there are mitigating factors that make these scenes less problematic than they otherwise might have been. Firstly, I’ve already watched the revised versions of the original films which had their share. <em>Phantom</em> has far more CGI, but it also feels era appropriate here. I may not love it, but I can accept this is how a film made in 1999 would look. Yes, there is revisionism even here (with, for instance, a new CG Yoda replacing the puppet used in the 1999 release), but it doesn’t feel anywhere near as jarring as the 21st Century effects added to the original 1977 film. Finally, on this subject, the computer generated scenes - fake as they looked - were attractive to look at. At times this felt rather like watching a Pixar flick which I found rather easy to accept and appreciate. The overall tone is different from that of the original trilogy - with CGI unavoidably feeling less subjective and immersive - but it’s not as unpleasant as I would have expected.</p><p></p><p>As for Threepio and Artoo: I enjoyed them here. I find Threepio enjoyable anyway, but it’s worth noting that this is possibly the most I’ve enjoyed Artoo. I was pleased to see him, for heaven’s sake. Their first meeting taking place here did feel contrived and cheesy and somewhat unconvincing (with technology evolving, would they really still be doing their thing half a century later), but I understand that it was one of the few opportunities to have that familiar dynamic from the original.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"></p> <p style="text-align: center"><em>continued…</em></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><em><strong><span style="font-size: 18px">* </span></strong><span style="font-size: 12px">It bothers my sense of uniformity that I’ve now begun adding the episode numbers to these titles, but it reflects the marketing of the series since this is when these seemed to be formally added to official posters. </span></em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em><strong><span style="font-size: 18px">** </span></strong><span style="font-size: 12px">Oh - I’ve just realised that Chewbacca wasn’t in this film. Another selling point for Phantom.</span></em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Spells & Karma, post: 324569, member: 23"] [CENTER][SIZE=5]THE PREQUEL TRILOGY[/SIZE] [B][SIZE=6]Episode I: The Phantom Menace [/SIZE]* [/B](1999) [IMG width="531px"]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYTRhNjcwNWQtMGJmMi00NmQyLWE2YzItODVmMTdjNWI0ZDA2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTAyODkwOQ@@._V1_.jpg[/IMG] [/CENTER] Well… expectations were well and truly lowered for this one. This proved a great starting point as I actually surprised myself with how much I found to enjoy. Let’s acknowledge the elephants in the room before moving onto pleasantries: Yes - Jar Jar Binks is a pimple on the nose of this film. He’s there, and it’s difficult to pretend otherwise. It could be argued that he’s simply a natural evolution of the more puerile elements of the original trilogy, be it Ewoks, Wookies, Hutts or cutesy little droids. However, he does seem far more reminiscent of those exasperating Disney sidekicks that ruined otherwise great films (think Robin Williams’s Genie in [I]Aladdin[/I], or Eddie Murphy’s Mushu in [I]Mulan[/I], released while [I]The Phantom Menace [/I]was in production). There’s no denying he’s a pain and the film would have been improved without him, but there are levels to this: I didn’t find Jar Jar as irritating in this film as I found Chewie** and Artoo in the original trilogy. Perhaps this is by virtue of the fact that [I]Phantom[/I] was perhaps a little more overtly cartoon-like in its presentation, and so Jar Jar simply feels like a necessary evil that can be somewhat tuned out. The cartoon-like aspect leads me on to the next downside of this film: there is an abundance of CGI. Almost every action scene is packed with it, with some scenes being very clearly [I]entirely[/I] computer generated. A scene with hordes of robots breaking through a force field to attack defenders with electronic shields was probably the most glaring of these, but the most testing - by virtue of its endless length - was the pod racing scene which simply felt like watching a computer game: a very good computer game, but still obviously entirely fake. I’m still unsure how exactly Anakin won since I mentally tuned out midway through the sequence, as one does when being subjected to any kind of motor racing for prolonged periods. Again, though, there are mitigating factors that make these scenes less problematic than they otherwise might have been. Firstly, I’ve already watched the revised versions of the original films which had their share. [I]Phantom[/I] has far more CGI, but it also feels era appropriate here. I may not love it, but I can accept this is how a film made in 1999 would look. Yes, there is revisionism even here (with, for instance, a new CG Yoda replacing the puppet used in the 1999 release), but it doesn’t feel anywhere near as jarring as the 21st Century effects added to the original 1977 film. Finally, on this subject, the computer generated scenes - fake as they looked - were attractive to look at. At times this felt rather like watching a Pixar flick which I found rather easy to accept and appreciate. The overall tone is different from that of the original trilogy - with CGI unavoidably feeling less subjective and immersive - but it’s not as unpleasant as I would have expected. As for Threepio and Artoo: I enjoyed them here. I find Threepio enjoyable anyway, but it’s worth noting that this is possibly the most I’ve enjoyed Artoo. I was pleased to see him, for heaven’s sake. Their first meeting taking place here did feel contrived and cheesy and somewhat unconvincing (with technology evolving, would they really still be doing their thing half a century later), but I understand that it was one of the few opportunities to have that familiar dynamic from the original. [CENTER] [I]continued…[/I][/CENTER] [I][B][SIZE=5]* [/SIZE][/B][SIZE=3]It bothers my sense of uniformity that I’ve now begun adding the episode numbers to these titles, but it reflects the marketing of the series since this is when these seemed to be formally added to official posters. [/SIZE] [B][SIZE=5]** [/SIZE][/B][SIZE=3]Oh - I’ve just realised that Chewbacca wasn’t in this film. Another selling point for Phantom.[/SIZE][/I] [/QUOTE]
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“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." Watching the Star Wars films
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