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I thought this was just a meme! I thought people were just pissed off at the Sequels! But I'm watching Star Wars in chronological order and enjoying it! How the fuck is this possible?
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I have no emotional connection to Star Wars. Growing up, I only ever saw the originals as bits-and-pieces. I saw the Prequels in theaters as they released. I couldn't remember a thing about them. Ep 7 also failed to to impress me when my roommates rented it. I finally watched A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back on May 4th 2019 when I tried to gather my (soon-to-be-ex) roommates for a watch party. No one showed (guess that's an emotional connection? lol)
Yep. There goes all my nerd cred. The order in which I've watched the Star Wars films (in their entirety) was 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 7 -> 4 -> 5
Which brings us to today. The new meme going around is to treat the Prequels as cinematic masterpieces. I assumed it to be a reaction to the Sequels.
Episodes 7 through 9 were, after all, mainly sold on the premise of correcting past Prequel mistakes. JJ Abrams, for example, did an on-set video showing off all the practical effect creatures prior to the release of Force Awakens, as if to say "see, no bad CGI this time!"
Of course, reaction to the Sequels has been anywhere between "meh" to "WORST THING EVER!!!", which opens the gate to re-examine the Prequels.
---
I recently decided to give Star Wars a go in chronological order and I'm floored by how much I'm enjoying these films!
Can we just take a moment to appreciate about how crazy creative Star Wars is as a concept? So there's this galaxy-wide multi-planet republic that's like The Federation from Star Trek mixed with The Holy Roman Empire and their military is this order of superhero knights with psychic powers and magic swords! It's like, "hey Lucas what tropes are you putting into your sci-fi franchise?" and he says, "YES".
Episode 1: The Phantom Menace opens with a seemingly mundane premise. In the outskirts of the galaxy, a Trade Federation is blockading the planet Naboo, hoping to force a treaty in their favor. In response, The Republic sends two of their super-powered space wizards (the Jedi, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan) out to act as negotiators. Even they seem bored to be there, with Obi-Wan more worried about what he senses in the future than the task at hand. But it turns out the Trade Federation is secretly working with some mysterious evil space wizard! Spooked by the presence of the Jedi, they jump the gun on their real plan: invade Naboo outright, cut off communications, and win before the Republic have time to respond.
(People complained about the fictional politics in Episode One. To that I say: go watch Game of Thrones! Most popular TV show in recent memory, and the plot is War of the Roses with dragons!)
So the Jedi find themselves fighting off a surprise attack onboard the space station where they expected a boring negotiation, and start mowing down all the droids with their lightsabers. They make their escape by sneaking aboard a couple of the attack ships headed towards Naboo. On the surface, they meet a Gungan named Jar-Jar, saving his life in the process. In the Gungan culture, saving someone's life incurs a life debt. To pay back the debt, Jar-Jar takes the Jedi through the underwater Gungan city as a shortcut to warn the Queen of Naboo and help protect her from the invaders.
Now, Jar-Jar is a goofy character. I'm not one of those guys who think he's secretly a Sith Lord masterminding things in the background. But he's not the worst thing ever. Hell, he's hardly the worst thing in Episode 1. I think the Gungan leader going RUBLBLBLBLBLBL every time he agrees with something is way worse. (God, imagine if Jar-Jar did THAT throughout the whole movie! This post would NOT be happening!)
Once Qui-Gon and and Obi-Wan reach the capital, the Trade Federation have just about taken over, and are trying to force the treaty (legitimizing their invasion). The Jedi sneak Queen Amidala and some of her handmaids/guards onto a ship and slip past the blockade. Accompanying them is R2-D2, a repair droid assigned to their ship (and the only one to survive their escape) They plan to take her back to the capital of the Republic to report the attack. However, the ship is damaged and their forced to land on Planet Tatooine to find replacement parts.
Real quick: I just realized that I watched this movie days ago, watched Attack of the Clones, and half of Clone Wars (2003) and can still recite this plot from memory alone! I get why the Prequels were a letdown on release, but you can't argue that this is a solid adventure story that sticks with you after you've seen it! Can anyone say that about, I dunno, ANYTHING these days? What happened in the last Fantastic Four movie? Fuck if I can recall beyond "Galactus attacks and Thing gets a beard". Say what you will about Lucas, the guy knows how to craft a story!
Tatooine is another outer-world in the Republic, where the Galactic Senate has fuck-all power, people are poor, slavery is practiced, and everything is owned/run by gangsters. This tracks with what we've seen with the Trade Federation vs Naboo: that the Republic in all its vast grandeur is unable to keep order within its own borders. This contrasts Star Trek, where the Galactic Federation is but one player in a not-fully-explored galaxy full of rival powers both large and small. The Republic of Star Wars seems to encompass its entire fully-charted galaxy, at least on paper, only needing enough military to enforce internal disputes. (This will come back to bite them in the ass come Episode 2)
Again, look at all this SUBSTANCE the story entails! There's no wasted time on pointless scenes [except maybe Jar-Jar stepping in shit] and everything ties into the theme of the story.
Once on Tatooine we follow the two Jedi, Padme (one of Queen Amidala's handmaids), Jar-Jar, and R2 to the nearby town of Mos Espa.
Now, to be fair, I had to look up the name of the town. And unless I missed a vital line, why did they park the ship so far away? I get it's a rough joint but it's not like their totally defenseless. This is one thing that bothers me most about Star Wars: at times they seem to forget the "Star" aspect of things. You have a faster-than-light spacecraft! You can land it ANYWHERE! WHY subject yourself to a miles-long walk through a desert?
Another things I cannot defend is the incredibly wooden delivery in this film. The dialog is fine, if read as a script, but Lucas is a much better writer than he is a director. There's one scene in Episode 2 that I'll get to later that really exemplifies this problem. But for now, we'll settle for the star of the show: Anakin Skywalker, the boy who would be Darth Vader, played by the young Jake Lloyd.
I don't enjoy Jake Lloyd's performance, but I don't hate it, either. He's just a kid in way over his head. (as are several other child actors playing Tatooine children) It's especially an issue when chatting it up with Padme, his future love interest. This is another instance where a better director, maybe one more experienced with child actors, could have helped the movie out.
Anakin and his mother are slaves under the ownership of a local scrap dealer, Watto. Watto's got the parts that Qui-Gon and the gang need to repair their ship, but won't give it up for Republic credits. Their worth on Tatooine is as worthless as the Republic's "on paper" control of these outer worlds. But Anakin's got some skills to pay the bills: he's a Pod Racer.
What is Pod Racing? THE COOLEST THING IN THE MOVIE! It's like this hover-pod pulled by two jet engines held together by cables and magnetic forces. It makes no sense at all, and I DON'T CARE!
Meanwhile, Qui-Gon's been sensing a great potential within the young Anakin. He's strong with The Force, the magic behind the Jedi's powers. While inquiring about the boy's father, Qui-Gon learns he was immacuately concieved: literally born from The Force with no father! I...don't know if that was fully necessary. That seems like a bit much in my opinion. There's a prophecy amoung the Jedi about a Chosen One who will bring balance to the Force by defeating the Sith, their dark-side enemies also thought long dead. But still, a literal Jesus figure?
George may have gone a little too far in some places.
Qui-Gon makes a bet: he puts up the Queen's ship as collateral to Watto, who covers Anakin's entry fee into a pod race. If Anakin wins, Watto takes the cost of the parts out of the winnings AND releases the boy from slavery (so Qui-Gon can train him to be a Jedi). What follows is pure, concentrated, BADASS:
They made a podracing video game for the N64. That's right, they made an entire video game based off ONE aspect of Star Wars: Episode One! That's how popular this shit was back in the day!
Anakin succeeds, showing off his skills not only as a pilot, but as a tech-minded genius who can adapt on his feet as another racer attempts to sabatoge his pod. His freedom won, and the Queen's ship fully repaired, he bids his mother and old live farewell and embarks on his journey...
---
Anyway, this post has seriously snowballed far beyond what I thought it would be. I'll continue this review/analysis/thing tomorrow morning.
---
I have no emotional connection to Star Wars. Growing up, I only ever saw the originals as bits-and-pieces. I saw the Prequels in theaters as they released. I couldn't remember a thing about them. Ep 7 also failed to to impress me when my roommates rented it. I finally watched A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back on May 4th 2019 when I tried to gather my (soon-to-be-ex) roommates for a watch party. No one showed (guess that's an emotional connection? lol)
Yep. There goes all my nerd cred. The order in which I've watched the Star Wars films (in their entirety) was 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 7 -> 4 -> 5
Which brings us to today. The new meme going around is to treat the Prequels as cinematic masterpieces. I assumed it to be a reaction to the Sequels.
Episodes 7 through 9 were, after all, mainly sold on the premise of correcting past Prequel mistakes. JJ Abrams, for example, did an on-set video showing off all the practical effect creatures prior to the release of Force Awakens, as if to say "see, no bad CGI this time!"
Of course, reaction to the Sequels has been anywhere between "meh" to "WORST THING EVER!!!", which opens the gate to re-examine the Prequels.
- The Prequels had X
- The Sequels promised NO X
- The Sequels aren't good movies despite NO X
- Therefore X wasn't that bad in hindsight
---
I recently decided to give Star Wars a go in chronological order and I'm floored by how much I'm enjoying these films!
Can we just take a moment to appreciate about how crazy creative Star Wars is as a concept? So there's this galaxy-wide multi-planet republic that's like The Federation from Star Trek mixed with The Holy Roman Empire and their military is this order of superhero knights with psychic powers and magic swords! It's like, "hey Lucas what tropes are you putting into your sci-fi franchise?" and he says, "YES".
Episode 1: The Phantom Menace opens with a seemingly mundane premise. In the outskirts of the galaxy, a Trade Federation is blockading the planet Naboo, hoping to force a treaty in their favor. In response, The Republic sends two of their super-powered space wizards (the Jedi, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan) out to act as negotiators. Even they seem bored to be there, with Obi-Wan more worried about what he senses in the future than the task at hand. But it turns out the Trade Federation is secretly working with some mysterious evil space wizard! Spooked by the presence of the Jedi, they jump the gun on their real plan: invade Naboo outright, cut off communications, and win before the Republic have time to respond.
(People complained about the fictional politics in Episode One. To that I say: go watch Game of Thrones! Most popular TV show in recent memory, and the plot is War of the Roses with dragons!)
So the Jedi find themselves fighting off a surprise attack onboard the space station where they expected a boring negotiation, and start mowing down all the droids with their lightsabers. They make their escape by sneaking aboard a couple of the attack ships headed towards Naboo. On the surface, they meet a Gungan named Jar-Jar, saving his life in the process. In the Gungan culture, saving someone's life incurs a life debt. To pay back the debt, Jar-Jar takes the Jedi through the underwater Gungan city as a shortcut to warn the Queen of Naboo and help protect her from the invaders.
Now, Jar-Jar is a goofy character. I'm not one of those guys who think he's secretly a Sith Lord masterminding things in the background. But he's not the worst thing ever. Hell, he's hardly the worst thing in Episode 1. I think the Gungan leader going RUBLBLBLBLBLBL every time he agrees with something is way worse. (God, imagine if Jar-Jar did THAT throughout the whole movie! This post would NOT be happening!)
Once Qui-Gon and and Obi-Wan reach the capital, the Trade Federation have just about taken over, and are trying to force the treaty (legitimizing their invasion). The Jedi sneak Queen Amidala and some of her handmaids/guards onto a ship and slip past the blockade. Accompanying them is R2-D2, a repair droid assigned to their ship (and the only one to survive their escape) They plan to take her back to the capital of the Republic to report the attack. However, the ship is damaged and their forced to land on Planet Tatooine to find replacement parts.
Real quick: I just realized that I watched this movie days ago, watched Attack of the Clones, and half of Clone Wars (2003) and can still recite this plot from memory alone! I get why the Prequels were a letdown on release, but you can't argue that this is a solid adventure story that sticks with you after you've seen it! Can anyone say that about, I dunno, ANYTHING these days? What happened in the last Fantastic Four movie? Fuck if I can recall beyond "Galactus attacks and Thing gets a beard". Say what you will about Lucas, the guy knows how to craft a story!
Tatooine is another outer-world in the Republic, where the Galactic Senate has fuck-all power, people are poor, slavery is practiced, and everything is owned/run by gangsters. This tracks with what we've seen with the Trade Federation vs Naboo: that the Republic in all its vast grandeur is unable to keep order within its own borders. This contrasts Star Trek, where the Galactic Federation is but one player in a not-fully-explored galaxy full of rival powers both large and small. The Republic of Star Wars seems to encompass its entire fully-charted galaxy, at least on paper, only needing enough military to enforce internal disputes. (This will come back to bite them in the ass come Episode 2)
Again, look at all this SUBSTANCE the story entails! There's no wasted time on pointless scenes [except maybe Jar-Jar stepping in shit] and everything ties into the theme of the story.
This is also why I feel that the Galactic Federation on Star Trek works better without internal conflict and focuses on external threats and exploration. As a Trekkie I can't believe I'm spending so much effort gushing about Star Wars but here we are! I gotta go rewatch DS9 after all this is done...
Once on Tatooine we follow the two Jedi, Padme (one of Queen Amidala's handmaids), Jar-Jar, and R2 to the nearby town of Mos Espa.
Now, to be fair, I had to look up the name of the town. And unless I missed a vital line, why did they park the ship so far away? I get it's a rough joint but it's not like their totally defenseless. This is one thing that bothers me most about Star Wars: at times they seem to forget the "Star" aspect of things. You have a faster-than-light spacecraft! You can land it ANYWHERE! WHY subject yourself to a miles-long walk through a desert?
Another things I cannot defend is the incredibly wooden delivery in this film. The dialog is fine, if read as a script, but Lucas is a much better writer than he is a director. There's one scene in Episode 2 that I'll get to later that really exemplifies this problem. But for now, we'll settle for the star of the show: Anakin Skywalker, the boy who would be Darth Vader, played by the young Jake Lloyd.
I don't enjoy Jake Lloyd's performance, but I don't hate it, either. He's just a kid in way over his head. (as are several other child actors playing Tatooine children) It's especially an issue when chatting it up with Padme, his future love interest. This is another instance where a better director, maybe one more experienced with child actors, could have helped the movie out.
Anakin and his mother are slaves under the ownership of a local scrap dealer, Watto. Watto's got the parts that Qui-Gon and the gang need to repair their ship, but won't give it up for Republic credits. Their worth on Tatooine is as worthless as the Republic's "on paper" control of these outer worlds. But Anakin's got some skills to pay the bills: he's a Pod Racer.
What is Pod Racing? THE COOLEST THING IN THE MOVIE! It's like this hover-pod pulled by two jet engines held together by cables and magnetic forces. It makes no sense at all, and I DON'T CARE!
Meanwhile, Qui-Gon's been sensing a great potential within the young Anakin. He's strong with The Force, the magic behind the Jedi's powers. While inquiring about the boy's father, Qui-Gon learns he was immacuately concieved: literally born from The Force with no father! I...don't know if that was fully necessary. That seems like a bit much in my opinion. There's a prophecy amoung the Jedi about a Chosen One who will bring balance to the Force by defeating the Sith, their dark-side enemies also thought long dead. But still, a literal Jesus figure?
George may have gone a little too far in some places.
Qui-Gon makes a bet: he puts up the Queen's ship as collateral to Watto, who covers Anakin's entry fee into a pod race. If Anakin wins, Watto takes the cost of the parts out of the winnings AND releases the boy from slavery (so Qui-Gon can train him to be a Jedi). What follows is pure, concentrated, BADASS:
They made a podracing video game for the N64. That's right, they made an entire video game based off ONE aspect of Star Wars: Episode One! That's how popular this shit was back in the day!
Anakin succeeds, showing off his skills not only as a pilot, but as a tech-minded genius who can adapt on his feet as another racer attempts to sabatoge his pod. His freedom won, and the Queen's ship fully repaired, he bids his mother and old live farewell and embarks on his journey...
---
Anyway, this post has seriously snowballed far beyond what I thought it would be. I'll continue this review/analysis/thing tomorrow morning.
