He’s just putting it on. I don’t know why he thinks that the fake voice is better than his real one, but I find it incredibly annoying, too. Not annoying enough not to listen to the review, though, which was really good. (Also, the voice thing grated on my nerves less after the first several minutes as he toned it down a bit.)
I don’t know about that. There’s lots and lots of stories out there where you know how it’s going to end, but can still be engrossing, if it’s handled right. Sunset Boulevard opens with a shot of the protagonist floating face down in a pool, then jumps back to describe how he got there. The first eight lines of Romeo and Juliet are:
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
Which pretty much sums up everything you’re about to see, but the play still works wonderfully. And the ending of Titanic was not exactly a surprise twist.
When done well, knowing the outcome of the story beforehand can be used to create a lot of tension. If the audience knows that the protagonist is doomed, but still likes and identifies with him, it can create a powerful sense of dread as he rushes towards his inescapable destiny. Or if they find him especially despicable, they can gleefully anticipate his pre-ordained comeuppance. As a technique, there’s nothing inherently wrong in telling your audience the outcome of a work ahead of time. The problem with the prequel movies isn’t that the audience already knows that Anakin is going to turn into Darth Vader. The problem is, it’s almost impossible to *care *that he’s going to turn into Darth Vader, because there’s really nothing at all compelling about his character. He’s dull and whiny, and more than a little dopey. For this story to work, he needed to be some sort of towering Byronic figure, grappling with a dark and inescapable fate. What we get instead is a petulant teenager, whinging about how hard and unfair everything is, like we’re watching a live re-enactment of a MySpace account, instead of an epic tale of swashbuckling outer space adventure.
But this one wasn’t.
That’s pretty much all I was saying.
And there were other arcs that were equally hard to care about. The whole Republic → Empire thing was a snoozer as well.
I think the word you wanted to use there was table, not chair. BTW, I also liked how basically everything was Jar Jars’ fault.
AotC and RotS were both okay from my point of view. TPM was utter crap.
Agreed.
No offense, but I don’t think it was. “Anakin was not a compelling character,” is a wholly separate complaint from, “You already knew how it was going to end before it started.” If Anakin had been compelling, then it wouldn’t have mattered if you knew how his story ended. And if you didn’t know how the story ended, but Anakin was still uncompelling, the films would still have been bad.
But was also something that could have been engrossing, had it been handled better.
No, “tabled” means you set aside the motion, possibly for debate at some future time, possibly in the hopes that support for it will die before it comes up again. If Jar Jar had tabled the motion to give Palpatine emergency powers, he would have been preventing him from seizing power.
To “chair” something means to preside over it. Jar Jar introduced the motion to give Palpatine powers, and appeared to somewhat guide the debate, so saying that he chaired the motion is not incorrect.
Interesting opinion! Utter shit of course, I’m afraid, but fascinating. See, I happen to be the leading expert on what I mean.
It actually depends on which form of English you prefer:
I also liked Palpatine throwing those senate floating balcony things at Yoda.
I agree that Yoda fighting was a horrible idea(or at least the way he fought).
Was I the only one who imagined Yoda going “andele andele yeeba yeeba!!” like Speedy Gonzalez during his fight with Dooku?
Oh what a surprise. Someone starts a thread on what is done right in the prequels and it turns into a thread about how much the prequels sucked. Including a link to that review that’s longer than the movie.
Anyway.
I agree all the Jedi shit was really cool. Loved to see the Jedis kicking ass.
Ewan McGregor was awesome through all 3.
I thought ROTS was really good. It fit well with the other 3. Including the fact, as someone mentioned, that they started to bring the look of the original trilogy in there.
Yeah the music is great.
I liked the Yoda battle technique. But, I can see the point that it might have been better just to have him calmly using the force to whip around the room and upend any and all comers. But, since they didn’t go that route I liked the crazy somersaulting version they went with. I know every time I saw the movie the crowd cheered when that went on. I liked it.
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I did mention in the starting post that I hate the prequels.
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Seriously, everyone has seen the Mr. Plinkett reviews. It’s getting to the point where mentioning them like no one else has seen them is…presumptuous, to say the least.
I only watched The Phantom Menace.
Jar-Jar Binks was pretty well designed I thought. The big Gungan-droid battle was silly as a battle, but otherwise the Gungans were a pretty good comic relief race.
And the politicking with Palpatine was appropriately creepy & foreboding, in that one.
Haven’t seen the others.
I guess I am not part of everyone. I just have a policy against reviews that are longer than the movie.
I don’t know if you are joking, but if you are not, this is a stupid policy. I think the review is not only more entertaining than the prequels, but it also does a better job of deconstructing the problems with the prequels than I’ve seen anywhere else. I’d rather point to that review than try to make any of the points myself, because he does a better and more thorough job than I ever could on a message board. If you have any interest in Star Wars, it’s worth it to just watch the damned review.
I liked the prequels. Good? Maybe not, but I LIKED them, which is something else entirely than good. So what he did right for me was entertain me enough to see the next one in theaters, buy all three DVDs.
I agree with a lot of the specifics mentioned already (Ewan, music, Lee, etc.) but I’ll add: the pod race was pretty cool. Anakin and Obi-Wan chasing after the assassin was fun. The arena scene was too. And Kashyyyk.
You are using tabled with the American meaning. In the rest of the English speaking world, it means you are starting the process, not stopping or pausing it.
You chair a committee. You introduce or maybe sponsor a motion. Again, I am speaking as a Canadian, not American.
And let’s not forget that Anakin 'bedded ’ Padme! 
TLDW
The Plinkett review for Episode I is seven parts, each lasting roughly ten minutes, for a total of 70 minutes. Per IMDB, Episode I is 136 minutes long. If you’re going to repeat a tired canard, it’s best to make sure that it is accurate. This doesn’t even work as hyperbole.