# Gosh, the Phantom Menace really WAS bad. SPOILERS!!! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 10, 2002, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358 "2002-05-10T20:31:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2002, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/1 "2002-05-10T20:31:53Z")
(Spoilers, I suppose, although I may be the last person in existence who had never seen this movie.) As part of the relentless hype for the next Star Wars movie, Fox showed the Phantom Menace last night. Somehow I had never gotten around to seeing it – back when it was in the theatres, I was at first put off by the hype and then disheartened by the word-of-mouth. In fact, it got panned so soundly that I never even bothered to rent it, even though I enjoyed Star Wars when it first came out and I adore cheesy Sci-Fi. So last night was the first time I’d seen this lead balloon of a movie. And gosh, yes, it was just mindbogglingly bad. Great effects, nice set design, and a plot that was at once so contrived, so banal, so predictable, so manipulatively _cute_ ,so determined to pull all the disparate threads together that they might have just drawn the special effects with crayon for all the good they did. I particularly hated how you could see the clunky plot points falling into place. Yes, there’s only one vendor on the whole of Tatooine who has the hyperdrive you need and he won’t take your money and he’s immune to Jedi mind tricks and did we mention he’s the only one who has the hyperdrive, and by the way, there’s a big race tomorrow and a precocious kid with an untested pod racer and so on… Or Anakin’s \* stupid \* narrative while he’s piloting his space ship(!), “Oh, I can’t find the trigger.”, “Oh, I guess this starts the engine.”, “Oh, look, here’s the trigger.”, “Oh, I guess it’s on autopilot and is set to deliver me to the middle of a space battle so I can blunder my way into a hanger of a spaceship that is certainly not UL approved because destroying one reactor somehow causes the whole gigantic thing to self-destruct, thus causing all the evil mechanoids to freeze because clearly the enemy fully subscribes to the “Lord of the Rings, let’s put all our eggs in one basket to make it easy for the good guys” syndrome.” Or the conveniently placed timed force-fields during the battle with Darth Maul – they reminded me of nothing so much as the weird piston engine in Galaxy Quest – it’s only purpose was to make for an exciting plot point. Speaking of which-- the levitating light saber? Look people, as Larry Niven pointed out, if you have telekinetic abilities, you don’t dick around with laser swords – you reach into the other person’s chest and squeeze. Or stir their cerebrum like a container of yogurt. Let’s not even discuss stupidities like the princesses assault team having “ascender” modes on their laser pistols so they can grapple their way up the castle wall. The idea of sacrificing an army of stupid primitives as a distraction for an invasion of the capital is just so stupid and hackneyed and contrived – I don’t understand why the Gungan’s didn’t flay and eat the princess when she suggested it. OK, I don’t know why I’m beating a horse that has been lying dead for several years now. All I can say is “Wow. They weren’t kidding.” ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2002, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/2 "2002-05-10T20:42:49Z")
I can’t think about one good thing to say about that damn movie. And, from what I can tell, the “love” scenes in the new one are going to be even more cringe-worthy. I would avoid seeing it. Unfortunately, it’s mandatory. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2002, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/3 "2002-05-10T21:47:37Z")
I also feel that it was incredibly bad. I was amazed. I thought that the grumblings back when it first came out were just the purists. It was that bad. It was so clearly aimed at children. **The Last Starfighter** (granted, a tolerably good movie, but not in the league with **Star Wars** ) was markedly better. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/4 "2002-05-11T00:30:12Z")
Wait a second **Finagle** All that and you didn’t mention Jar Jar Binks once?!?!? ---
**Author:** ![widdershins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f0a364/32.png) [@widdershins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/widdershins)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/5 "2002-05-11T00:58:18Z")
I missed it at the theatre (Lucas didn’t need my money, even fanboys I knew who hated it went to see it several times to _support_ it) but I caught it on video. Everytime it caught my interest while watching, and I started to say, “it’s not that bad,” something would happen to make me think differently. Another Jar Jar scene, Anakin Skywalker - Idiot Savant Child Pilot, mitochlorians (sp?) WTF, Liam Neeson’s beard, gratuitous Sam Jackson, etc. I so wanted it to be good, I am a recovering fanboy myself. I even taped that news segment/commercial on “60 Minutes” to show to the other fanboys, since none of them even knew it was on. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/6 "2002-05-11T01:23:55Z")
I found this on another message board. Sorry, I forgot who, as I saved it a while back since it so perfectly reflects my thoughts of TPM: > [@](#): > > … Sure many would say it’s silly and it’s just a movie… But that would be like saying the Mona Lisa is “just a painting” or Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata is “just a tune”. When art reaches a state of perfection it’s pure magic. I don’t care if it’s fine art or a movie that came out last month. Great art is timeless. Someone who thinks only films like Citizen Kane and Gone With the Wind can be great art, that’s just a snobs point of view. If everything is on and a film hits it’s target audience square in the face then it’s created it’s magic.I mean I’ve tried hard to really like TPM. I’ve even defended it in the past against the bashers (especially the ones who just go on and on about Jar Jar when I think his one of the lesser problems with the movie.) > > However the more I watch it the more I realize how bad it is. 'Fellowship of the Ring actually gave me that magical feeling I expected TPM to. Not because it was dark, just because everything fell perfectly into to place and the good guys seemed a real of friends like Han Luke and Leia in the OT. And the evil seemed REAL evil. Like Vader in the OT. Not just some cool looking guy mugging for the camera who never actually does anything evil like Maul. I even think Harry Potter was vastly better. After all Harry wasn’t going “oops” ever time he did something right. He actually acted like a chosen one, not some kid playing at McDonalds. > > Now I do think TPM had great stuff IN it. The lightsaber duels are awesome. The Effects are terrific. Qui-Gon Jinn is a very cool character. The podrace is cool (although it’s marred by the cheesy cartoon podracers and the stupid cartoon ESPN voiced announcers.) The fact that it had so much potential just aggravates me more. > > One thing that really bothers me is that Lucas told us TPM would be a lot like ANH. It’s nothing like it. First off we have so-called bad guys but when do they do anything evil? > > In ANH the Empire commits one evil act after another making us hate them. First we see stormies board Tantive IV and kill a bunch of Rebel Troops. Then Vader strangles Captain Antilles to death. > > Meanwhile on Tatooine stormies slaughter innocent Jawas and kill Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Then Vader tortures Leia and Tarkin blows up Alderaan killing millions (perhaps even billions). By this point in the picture us the viewer hates Vader and the Empire just as much as Luke and Leia. > > Then of course in ESB Vader tortures Han and Leia and slices off Luke’s Arm. > > In ROJ Vader and the Emperor have a strong presence of evil in the final confrontation with Luke. I especially love Palpy telling Luke his friends will now die and laughing and also when Vader threatens to turn Leia to the Darkside. Those parts send chills down my spine. > > In TPM we have the Neimoidians. They’re not evil. Just bumbling fools. They’re too audaciously stupid to be evil. And instead of making the battle droids scary he just makes them stupid. “Roger Roger!”. Darth Siddious is controlling them but to what end? To get control of the planet and get Palpy (himself) elected Chancellor? Where is the evil in that? I mean after all the republic is “not what it once was”. Just saying he’s a Sith isn’t enough. I mean if someone was watching the films for the first time in chronological order a “Sith” would mean squat to them. > > Also I mean sure Naboo is taken over, so what? We do hear some vague talk about the people dying (but that’s a ploy to get the Queen to reveal her location.) Then Amidala talks about her people dying and their way of life being threatened but I don’t see it. We don’t see ANY Naboo suffer. For all we know they where just sitting having tea and cookies during the whole thing. In fact except for a few Naboo soldiers and pilots, Qui-Gon and Darth Maul… We see no one else die in TPM. We see no Gungans die in the battle, heck even in ROJ some Ewoks got killed. > > The worst problems of all are during the final battle. Like I already stated the Gungan battle isn’t really much of a battle at all. It’s just comedy bits for Jar Jar, that seem more appropriate for a Pixar or PDI CGI toon then for a live action Star Wars. I didn’t really have much of a problem with Jar Jar earlier in the film except at times when he seems too cartoonish. But all would have been fine if he redeemed himself in the final battle. Instead he goes Buster Keaton on us. The most insulting is when he has the droid blaster stuck on his foot and he takes out several droids by accident, EVEN a Droideka which even the Jedi couldn’t take out. Everything he does good or bad is a mistake. > > Then we have Anakin in the N1. Instead of having him fly the N1 and go into battle on purpose we have the whole “automatic pilot deal” even worse while he flew his podracer with relative ease he seems to have no clue what to do in the n1 and all his success are accidents. Instead of being The Chosen One and doing everything by design it’s “oops this and oops that” acting more like a little kid playing with a toy then “the great pilot” Obi-Wan said he was when he met him. Even worse he flies into the Droid Control ship by accident and then blow it up by accident. (If you’ve seen the Phantom Edit you’ve seen how much better it would have worked if Anakin’s actions seemed intentional.) > > Just think how unexciting and anti-climatic > ANH would have been if Han accidentally shot [Vader] off of Luke’s tail and Luke accidentally blew up the Death Star. Yet that is what Lucas chose to do with TPM. Maybe he didn’t think a ten year old could do those things on purpose and if he meant your normal ten year old I would agree but Anakin is suppose to be a child prodigy, the chosen one. Look at Harry Potter. At the end of the movie all of the actions of him and his pals in the movie where with purpose, no "accidents’ that luckily come out good and it made it much more interesting. Lucas just seemed to have a bad case of the cutes… And was more interested in being cute then telling a good story like he did with the OT. > > Back to the villain problem, we have Darth Maul. Yeah he looks freaky enough but he never does anything evil. Even as much as him killing Qui-Gon with a cheap shot pissed me off I couldn’t classify it as evil since it was a fair fight more or less. All Maul ever really did besides the duel is mug for the camera and act cool. I mean look how many people where not upset over Qui-Gon’s death (although I was) but they where over Darth Maul’s. I mean when I was a kid and we played Star Wars no one was like “I wanna be Darth Vader!” Every boy wanted to be Han or Luke. > > Ok, now after ESB came out there where always some who wanted to be Boba Fett but that’s because Boba just acted cool. Plus he wasn’t a major villain, he was just a money hungry bounty hunter. Like Maul he just stood around acting cool. That was fine for him but for Maul it sucked. We’re suppose to hate the villain and be scared of them. If we think they’re cool and want to be them the storyteller isn’t doing his proper job. > > Weird part is the Ewok movies seemed to be more gutsy then TPM in some ways. Battle for Endor opens with the entire Towani being killed except for Cyndel. I remember Lucas took some criticism for supposedly making ‘Battle for Endor’ and ‘Willow’ “too intense” for the little ones they where aimed at. With TPM it seemed he finally made a movie genteel enough to satisfy the militant parents watch groups. > > The reason I’m going on about all this is I want to point out that it’s not like I was in a state of Star Wars bliss and I heard N’Sync and it made me start raving like a maniac (you see I just always rave like a maniac, it’s my way _grin_) I’m just someone who has been dedicated to Star Wars his whole life, has always considered it the greatest movie series ever made and the pinnacle of SciFi/Fantasy… ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/7 "2002-05-11T02:03:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Back to the villain problem, we have Darth Maul. Yeah he looks freaky enough… I thought he looked like a Mexican wrestler. ---
**Author:** ![Tenebras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@Tenebras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenebras)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/8 "2002-05-11T03:17:58Z")
Although I did think that Lucas could have done better with Judges, he really came through on Second Kings, or Kings the Return, as we call it around here. OT as in **O** riginal **T** rilogy. Not OT as in **O** ld **T** estament. It all makes so much more sense now… His old testament was perfect. Don’t change a word! Tenebras ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/9 "2002-05-11T03:42:22Z")
Thank God they didn’t let Ray Park, who played Darth Maul, speak. Park was Toad in “X-Men,” and while his voice – British, kind of street-urchinish – was PERFECT for that role, it just wouldn’t have worked with Maul. ---
**Author:** ![Jurhael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@Jurhael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurhael)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/10 "2002-05-11T04:22:12Z")
HEYYY!! I wanted to be Darth Vadar! Or the Emperor. heheehehehe 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/11 "2002-05-11T04:51:06Z")
Well, Maul did speak. He has about seven words of dialogue. And they’re all _evil!!!_ I get annoyed when it becomes obvious the characters don’t have the slightest clue what they’re doing. Everything in TPM hinges on goofy coincidences and contrivances. And the big bad guy, Palpatine, gets what he wants (the Chancelorship) way too early in the movie. Once he had that, why would he give a damn about what the Trade Federation guys did if, as implied, the whole thing was a manipulation to get Amidala to call for a vote of no confidence? And why would he bother to send out his apprentice? What exactly was Darth Maul supposed to be _doing_ on Naboo? Killing two Jedi? Why bother? Did they know too much, or something? _What the hell was going on in this movie?!?!_ If what Palpatine really wanted was the Chancelorship, why does he try to prevent Amidala from getting to the Senate by sending out Darth Maul to find her? If anything, Maul should be _helping_ the Jedis get away from Tatooine. There were plenty of ways to make that interesting, rather than throw it away with some dopey inconclusive and entirely premature lightsaber fight between him and Qui-Jon. For example, it would have been nice to see Maul helping Anakin win the pod race by slaughtering the Tuskan snipers, or using the Force to crash the opponents. Evil _and_ functional. In the end, though, Palpatine seems pleasantly surprised that it all worked out. Of course, it would have worked out a lot sooner if he had just put on his hood and secretly ordered the Trade Federation to just end the occupation. That way he looks like a hero in his first weeks as Chancelor. Oh, well… chapter one and all that. ---
**Author:** ![Eternal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@Eternal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eternal)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/12 "2002-05-11T05:36:49Z")
Hell, with the exception of any scene that had thad damn kid in it, I thought it was a really good movie. I didn’t even mind Jar Jar that much. IMO, the hatred for him was largely just a thing the media grabbed because they wanted to talk about the biggest movie of the summer, and from then on it just kept getting repeated. That kid contributed more to the movie’s failure than anything else. I mean, sure young Anakin DID have to be in the flick, but pod racing? Hoppin in a fighter and destroying a ship through pure chance? The force is strong in him, but it can’t account for that. Really, you can’t blame the movie. Blame Lucas and his blatantly marketing-oriented approach to the whole film. The real problem was that apparently no one expected him to be all about the money. But still, there’s more good parts than bad, if you’re willing to suspend belief AT LEAST as much as you had to for the original trilogy! Much of your gripes can be explained, but this post is long eonough already. ---
**Author:** ![Fionn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/13 "2002-05-11T05:59:23Z")
I hadn’t seen the whole movie since I saw it in a theater in ‘99. I’d forgotten: The aliens that appear to have Asian accents. WTF? The midiclorians. Apparently, the Force is like cholesterol. Anakin actually says “Yippie!” Without the sarcasm that would have made it palatable. That Lucas apparently raided old _Full House_ scripts for Jar Jar Binks’ dialogue. (“How rude!”) I had also mercifully forgotten the depth of Jar Jar’s obnoxiousness. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/14 "2002-05-11T06:28:51Z")
Viceroy: You will sign the treaty or we will sic Godzilla on you! ---
**Author:** ![5-HT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/f19dbf/32.png) [@5-HT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5-HT)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/15 "2002-05-11T10:32:28Z")
I don’t know, for some reason, I liked Episode one. Yes it’s predictable, but so was the original. The special effects and created worlds are nothing short of incredible. Yes, Jar Jar was a crime against nature, but I’m willing to overlook that. Ewen McGregor, Liam Neeson, and Natalie Portman were all very good. Creating an Obi Wan that was believable after Alec Guinness was an enormous task, But Ewen was up to it. I think that in the end, Phantom Menace was a victim of its’ own hype. There was no possible way that this movie could have lived up to what people were expecting. I think that once the three prequels are done, we will see the true measure of this film. People went to see this and compared it to the entire first trilogy, which isn’t really fair. The only one of the first three which can really stand on its’ own as a great film is Empire, and I think that when TPM is looked back upon after the release of the next two, the popular opinion will be different. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/16 "2002-05-11T11:07:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Anakin actually says “Yippie!” TWICE, no less! Actually, the word “Yippie” appears in that movie - if I recall correctly - at least FOUR times. FOUR "YIPPIE"S! That’s how bad it is! I’ll tell you exactly what’s wrong with TPM. It just occurred to me. TPM should have been the first twenty minutes of AOTC. We should have had twenty minutes to show that Palpatine was wresting control of the Senate through a plot to invade Naboo… and then moved on to the whole Clone Wars bit. That left two episodes to dedicate to the war itself, Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side, Palpatine’s bid to become Emperor, and all sorts of other knick-knacks that were running around. Instead, Lucas wasted an entire episode by taking the first twenty minutes of what should have been the first film, stretching it out WA-A-A-A-A-AY too much, and making it its own movie. How to cut down TPM to twenty minutes? Simple… remove Jar-Jar, the Gungans, the whole “trip through the planet core” sequence (waste of space), the trip to Tatooine (make Anakin a resident of Naboo if necessary), the pod race, a good chunk of the unnecessary business on Coruscant, and don’t have the main characters return to Naboo for the Final Battle (instead, have a Republic task force show up at Naboo for a REAL space battle). Further, eliminate Qui-Gon, or at least make him and Obi-Wan equals. Additionally, Anakin should be a teenager when the Jedi find him. This allows us to skip what is, essentially, unnecessary filler. Filler should only be used in Star Trek, which relies on it. It also allows us to get the main gist of the whole movie - Palpatine wrests control of the Senate - without being distracted by said filler. It cuts down on the ridiculous coincidences and shows that the galaxy doesn’t revolve around the main characters. Further, SO MANY of the events in TPM would have been FAR more plausible if Anakin were only five or six years older. And cut out the whole “I’m a slave!” shtick. There are ways to make a sympathetic character without pulling the largest, most obvious heartstrings. C’mon, George, if you were going to do that, you also should’ve had Anakin selling matches on a street corner. Anyway, after the battle at Naboo - a small, meaningless skirmish, in the grand schem of things - the galaxy moves on to the unbalancing of the Clone Wars, which practically tears the galaxy to pieces. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/17 "2002-05-11T11:13:07Z")
What really bothered me about TPM was that the characters seemed so bland, at least in comparison to the OT. The characters are all _nice_ in the worst possible way, boring. There was zero chemistry. In ANH, Luke was a whiny brat “but I wanted to go get some power converters, waaaaa!” Han Solo was a criminal just looking to make a buck, and he shot Greedo first, dammit! Leia was tough, argumentative, and authoritarian. She had been imprisoned and tortured, but when Luke shows up in disguise her first words are “Aren’t you a little short to be a stormtrooper?” By the end of the movie, Luke took charge and did things HIS way. Han came back to save his friend from Vader. Leia changed her tone and seemed to really care about the safety of Luke and Han. They formed an obvious bond during the movie, and made us care whether or not they lived or died. These are characters you can fall in love with. Which characters in TPM struck ANYBODY that way? ---
**Author:** ![El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Elvis_Rojo)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/18 "2002-05-11T11:52:06Z")
What about the fact that when they get to Curosant (sic?), Amidala has her “replicant” self carrying on conversations with all the other chancelors and senators and such as soon as they land. What kind of professional is that? “Hey, let my fake duplicate carry on a conversation with these important deligates so I can FLIRT WITH AN EIGHT YEAR OLD BOY!!!” Whuh? The Gungan ship? In a sea full of gigantic sea monsters that eat one another, why would any civilization build underwater ships that look like fish? And I counted four BLATANT blue screens. One involving people coming out of a spaceship. When you have two people walking out of a two dimensional ship, you need to put your focus somewhere other than making sure that even while standing still, Jar Jar is in CONSTANT MOVEMENT!! Who girates that much when standing there looking at the wall? And Natalie Portman, I love her, she’s really a great actress, but I pray to GOD she gets rid of that HORRIFIC accent in the next films. What the fuck was that? And it’s been said, but the medichlorians was an awful, awful piss poor scientific explaination of something that was supposed to be mystical and great. It’s like going back through old Greek myths and explaining that Hurcules really had incredible strength because his family lived next to a uranium deposite and his genes mutated in the womb to make his muscles more dense, thus making him super human strong. Oi. And Darth Maul’s show up, get killed routine? Hate to spoil it, but the same thing happens in Episode 2. Already, there are two characters that have built up a bit of a fan base, they’re both evil, they’re both cool, and they both die before the end of the movie. Can’t wait to see who “Big Bad Disposable Villain” is going to be in Episode 3. Just don’t get attatched to anyone cool. ---
**Author:** ![Erroneous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71c47a/32.png) [@Erroneous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erroneous)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/19 "2002-05-11T13:22:13Z")
The first time I saw Episode One, I was just too damn excited about finally seeing a new episode of Star Wars to really care or process what I was seeing. I’ve only seen it a couple of times since then, most recently a week or so ago, and I’ve come to feel quite blah about it, for all the reasons listed by others here. It seems to me that if you took any of the poor to average-quality fan fiction written in the last couple of decades about the early life of Anakin, and turned it into a movie with huge production values, you’d get something very similar in quality to The Phantom Menace. ---
**Author:** ![Sealemon88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Sealemon88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sealemon88)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2002, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358/20 "2002-05-11T22:28:56Z")
> [@](#): > > The midiclorians. Apparently, the Force is like cholesterol. You know what REALLY pisses me off about midiclorians? The whole thing is a lame-ass way to make something mystical, that didn’t need to be explained, and make it seem more scientifically plausible. You know what other sequel did the same thing? [You got it!](http://www.jabootu.com/highlander2.htm) Phantom Menace could have been SO much better. That’s the tragedy. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gosh-the-phantom-menace-really-was-bad-spoilers/108358.md?page=2)