Wasn’t there a mention that they only had republic credits with them, and those were no good on Tatooine?
Right, because this backwater shithole planet doesn’t accept the standard galactic hard currency, and they don’t have currency exchanges. It’s just clumsy Plot Logic that obviously only exists to shoehorn the already unneccessary podrace in there. Uh, these guys are magic Zen badasses armed with laser swords on a crucial diplomatic mission for the galactic government, but they can’t buy the part they need because, uh, they have the wrong kind of money. And they can’t mind trick the junkyard dealer, because, er, he’s Force Proof. So they have to have a race to win the part they need. Yeah, that’s it. Man, this movie just writes itself.
A point which, in itself, makes no freakin’ sense .
The Jedi in the prequels seem to have no moral barriers to how they use the force. They quite happily enter into a game of chance, staking a slave’s life against a ship. They then quite happily cheat so that they win the game.
So why the fuck did they need to go through all that podrace bullshit in the first place? If they were prepared to cheat to win a bet why didn’t they just gamble for the necessary parts in a dice game, rather thanin the pod race? For that matter if they are willing to cheat to win bet why didn’t they use the force to disable the other ships in the pod race?
It’s all one massive plot hole. The whole pod racing setup requires that they have no money, and are prepared to risk a child’s life ot get some. But we are told that the whole planet is gambling crazy and they have magic powers that allow them to win every single game they bet on.
For that matter why did they only cheat once? After they cheated to win Annakin why didn’t they also cheat to win his mother? Maybe the flying turnip wouldn’t gamble with them again? So why not go next door, gamble with someone else untilt hey win twice what she’s worth and then go buy her off the turnip?
The whole movie is full of ridiculous plot holes like this. The worstof them is that when you go into a warzone you alwys take a 10 year old child with you, rather than leaving him on the peaceful planet you just left. Then at the first oportunity you abandon him in an enemy controlled airbase.
Yeah, that makes sense. Yet the whole movie revolves around this ridiculous act of child abuse.
I think debating the nuances of Star Wars defeats the whole point of them. They’re supposed to be fun adventure and eye candy movies, not great stories. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Lucas said balls to continuity on purpose, to keep in line with his vision of Star Wars as an homage to the [really really crappy, by the standards applied in this thread] scifi serials of his youth.
Yes; see Post 59 above. This cuts to the heart of the problem.
Yes, and the prequels were neither fun (incomprehensible politics, contrdictory backstory, unlikable characters), nor adventurous (morally ambiguous heroes and villains, no clear story arc) nor eye candy (horrible cga, hideous costume, pathetic sets).
That’s what everyone has always complained about. They aren’t light and fun but they have no depth and can’t be taken seriously either.
It’s not that the nuances are wrong, It’s that they fail on every single level, from the overall tone through to individual lines of dialogue. Being neither fish nor fowl they become faeces.
All true, and… new sig line!
Well, I can’t agree with you entirely; one part was cool. It was cool to see young Jedi in their prime swinging lightsabers, instead of doddering old men and their underprepared students. There’s 10 seconds of the Darth Maul fight that almost save the whole movie; starting at about 3:43 in the above clip, when Obi-Wan and Maul first clash and then disengage. It’s what lightsaber fighting has always been touted to be: highly-trained warriors with precognition going at one another with weightless blades. It’s beautiful.
Doesn’t make up for Jar Jar’s freakin’ fart joke, though. I may never forgive Lucas for putting a fart joke in a Star Wars movie.
Eh, I dunno. I partially agree with you, partially don’t. I think saying they fail on every level is bordering on shrill. Most people would agree there was some great eye candy in the series, even if it looked “fake” (we are talking about spaceships and aliens here, after all), there were some good action sequences, and Ewan McGregor was good pretty much all the way through IMO. These movies may not be considered great triumphs but they would be much more
well-received in a universe where the original trilogy did not exist. I have no doubt of that.
That’s the main thing the prequels have over the originals. The lightsaber combat is fantastically done, and I love watching it. There was a certain grace in the kendo-style art the original series used, but there was always far more potential for fluid, quick combat, given that the blades are weightless (or at least of negligible weight) and thus the weapons would be almost perfectly balanced in the hilt. The prequels did much, much more with the concept, and the fights in the original trilogy now look stiff and awkward (albeit given that in the first movie, it’s two old men fighting, one who’s been out of practice for 20 years and one whose limbs are artificial and has a bulky life support suit enclosing him, it certainly makes sense they wouldn’t be hopping around any time soon).
That’s a cool clip. Since we’re nitpicking, one thing about that always bothered me. Maul appears, Qui Gon says “we’ll handle this” and Padme says “we’ll take the long way.” Seems to me if Qui Gon and Obi-Wan are going to occupy Maul then there’s no reason to take the long way, is there?
Yeah, there is. You gonna march a platoon of red shirts right past a guy who can toss them like playing cards with a wave of his hand?
“Heyo-deeday! Meesa meesa! Blibba blibba! Oh noesy-woes! Ex-squeeeeze me!”
God, that never gets old.
Jar Jar was like the musical number at the end of Howard the Duck, concentrated to industrial strength, then squirted into a paper cut on your eye.
As has already been noted, the aliens are almost universally held to be horrible. Not eye candy in any way. Ugly (Boss Nas), irritating (Trade Ambassadors), implausible (the flying turnip), stupid (two headed MC), distracting (Jar Jar), offensive (most of them). I can’t say I’ve heard anyone say that the aliens were easy on the eye. General consensus seems to be that, with the excpetion of Darth Maul, the movies would have been improved, in every way including visually, by removing them all and replacing them with human actors.
So that’s a strike, IMO.
There was one potentially good action sequence in TPM, that was the final ligtsabre duel. And as others have noted even this was ruined by intercutting it with a “battle” scene betwen robots and tlaking frogs. The other action scenes such as the pod race or the submarine voyage were boring and/or repetitive and/or somewhat puzzling.
The same criticism can be applied o the other movies. One good action scene and lots of wanna be “action” scenes that were not.
This is true, and between being horribly underutilised, having cheesy dialogue and being directed to act like a “General Hospital” refugee it’s a credit to him that we can say this.
But one good actor dos not a movie make. Michael Caine was pretty good in movies ranging from "Killer bees to “Jaws 3”. Doesn’t mean those movies don’t suck.
True enough. And they would be even better recieved in a world in which the original “King Kong” and “Metropolis” did not exist.
If we could have stopped the progress of filmmaking as an art decades beforeany major movie was released it would have been much better recieved. But that’s not saying a lot because it’s as true of “Last Atcion Hero” and “Highlander II” as it is of the SW prequels.
Art progresses. Success and failures over the allow people to perfect the art and make it better, and every movie need to be innovative compared to what went before it. The fact that a movie can only be considered good if the public is ignorant of how derivative and unimmaginative it is, in itself, a massive criticism. A movie can’t just be a rehashing of previous works, even by the same team, and still be consider good.
But you are right. The movies aren’t total shit. But then I’ve never seen any movie that was total shit. Even “Gigli”, “Plan 9 From Outer Space” and “Surf Nazis Must Die” had some small redeeming features. Nonetheless I will describe them as failing on every level. One good actor, 10 one liners or or a 5 minute sword fight doesn’t rescue a two hour movie from the criticism of failing on every level.
We just have different ideas of what is and isn’t a total failure. I am a student and lover of film. I appreciate everything from early German expressionism to Welles to the French New Wave to new American independents, and all sorts of styles in between, both obscure and blockbuster. I don’t think Lucas was trying to make a great, logical, consistent, deep story, which is why I don’t think he failed at making a great, logical, deep, consistent story. He was making over-the-top action-adventure eyecandy, and I stand by my statement that there is more than enough eye candy in the series to go around. And I’m not just talking about Natalie Portman. Jaws 4 (the one Michael Caine was in) is also not a bad movie at all (better than Jaws 2 and 3) if you go into it accepting the premise that it’s a about a shark out for revenge. And you can’t pretend you don’t know this going in because it’s in the title.
And Gigli was an alright movie, damnit. I’ll go to my fucking grave standing by that.
Well of course it’s all personal opinion, so we’ll nver agree. But I’m right and you’re worng.
More seriously, the fact that virtually nobody seems to love these films despite the huge budget and huge adiences suggests that they are failures. A great many movie are debatable succses and have their fans and their critics, but this movie seems to have just critics and “people who think it’s not a total disaster”.
Well it’s all personal opinion, but I’ve already covered why I think he failed on all those counts, and the majority of viewers seem to agree.
And now I have to ask out of interest, how do you define a failed movie? It seems that having massive plot holes, bad directing, wooden acting, horrible scripts, shitty specieal effects, being reviled by most viewers, having no active supporters (as opposed to “people who think it’s OK”.) and so forth don’t qualify it as a failure so long as a coupleof minute so fth emovie works.
So does a movie qualify as a succes sif jut a few peopel think it succeeded in a few scenes? How about if just one person thinks it succeeded in one scene ?
In short, and to extent that any movie has ever failed, how can you detemrine this, and can you name a movie that you think failed and explain why?
Come on, now. I may have engaged in a little online hyperbole myself but you’re not saying that you honestly believe that no one loves these movies, are you? Go find some people under about age . . . 22. These movies are wildly popular with people who were kids when they came out . . . exactly like the first trilogy.
Again, a bunch of nerds complaining on the internet (and I include myself in that) is hardly an accurate sample group of “the majority of viewers.” Viewers ultimately vote with their wallets, and on top of the aforementioned fans, all 3 these are among the top 25 highest grossing films of all time, and 2 of them are in the top 10.
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was a failed film.
If they do I have neither met htm nor heard from them elsewhere.
I know and regularly speak to a lot of people in that age range. I repeat what I said above: nobody seems to like the film There are plenty who think it didn’t utterly stink but I can honetsly say that I have never heard anybody say they actually like it.
You might perhaps consider that Barney the Dinosaur is massivey popular amongst children. That doesn’t make it succesful music, nor does it mean that the writers have succeded in producing music that is anything but trite, repiitious, emotionally flat and laughable.
I have no doubt the movies were massively popular with children, so perhaps I should have been more precise: I am discussing adult opinions here.
So you are honestly saying that this is a reliable guide to popularity, rather than hype and changes in movie going culture Because if it is then you are saying that more people like “The Phantom Menace” than like the origal Star Wars movie. “Star Wars” doesn’t even make into to the top 100 list.
you are also claiming that more people like “A Night at the Museum” than like any Disney Classic, or Gone with the Wind or The Godfather or It’s a Wonderful Life or Wizard of OZ. In fat you are claiming that not a single movie more than 15 years sold is as well liked as “Night at the Museum”.
I find it a little hard to believe that you believe that.
It’s almost impossible to objectively measure how much a movie is liked, but claiming “A Night at the Museum” is more well liked than hundreds of classics beloved of generations or that more people like TPM than like the original SW is seems ridiculous.
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was a failed film.
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How about a film that someone else has actualy seen?
Uhhh, because I didn’t claim that at all.
First of all, Star Wars is in the top 100: it’s #3 - higher than all the prequels.
Secondly, A Night at the Museum can’t sniff any of those movies you mentioned’s nuts when adjusted for inflation. Gone With the Wind is still the king of that and will never be dethroned.
And finally, I’m not saying there’s a direct correlation between quality and popularity, just that people would’ve flocked to see these movies in less than record-setting numbers if they were as bad as you’re saying they are.