arminius

No, he didn't like it either. He thought his kids would.

princethomas

Ok. Well. Im not George Lucas, and I liked it. If I'm the only one then fine. Its not a great movie when compared to the rest of the world of movies. But only the original 1977 Star Wars is great in that sense. But as a Star Wars movie goes, its pretty good. Its probably 4th or 5th best of the series with AOTC. And ROTJ being the worst.

TGM

roflmfao

TGM

aren't you rather jaded for being a "new member"?

btw:



(stolen from the random pic thread in Otter)

mcnabb

2005 George talking to 1983 George while pointing at the green screen, "This is why I couldn't make the Prequels back in 1983!"

Larry C.

I took my 15 year old son to see MI4 this weekend. We are walking out of the theater and we see a movie poster for Phantom Menace 3D. I made a comment to him that I would never want to see it again in 2D much less 3D and his comment was, "I thought it was pretty good."

I then slapped him in the head to everyones delight and laughter.

So there princethomas you are not alone. My retarded 15 year old son agrees with you. I don't think he has seen Phamtom Menace since he was like 8. So I might have to force it on him to see what he thinks now.

Jay G.

You must be a new member if you think Star Wars threads are the only place that happens.

However, I'm all in favor of reasonable and well-thought out arguments for why the prequel films are good. You wouldn't happen to know of any, would you?

Mabuse

As more time goes by I actually think TPM is the best of the prequels. It still has some genuine locations and really beautiful photography. Everyone always says "Oh the pod race and Duel of the Fates was rad, the rest sucked." I would add that first 5 minutes aka everything on the command ship was fantastic, everything with R2-D2 was handled very well and I love his introduction, the GunGun city is truely memorable with music that makes it feel like something out of a dream, Liam Neeson is great in every one of his scenes, the first fight with Maul on Tatoine is great (very "less is more").

TPM has some of the biggest flaws of the prequels but it has some of the best magic moments too, probably the last magical moments left in the saga. AOTC and ROTS only had the flaws.

Timber

I'm sorry, but I just can't agree with you. TPM has without a doubt the best climactic duel in the series (why they had to cut it with 2 other storylines is beyond me) but it falls short in almost everything else. It's too long, the pod racing was toooo long. You're right the opening 5 minutes is really cool but that falls apart with the start of the bad CGI. The movie falls apart when they get to Naboo and falls even further with the over use of CGI when they get to Tatoine. And is there a bigger cop out in film history then not giving Anakin a father?

princethomas

Now thats interesting. Because I actually think the first 20 or so minutes of TPM is its biggest weakness. The hallway Jedi vs. Droids battle is great, but most of the stuff with the Nemoidians is pretty annoying. Unlike each of the other five films, TPM is a little all over the place in its first half hour. The two Jedi, go from one ship to a command ship to stowing away on landing crafts to hiding from droids, to meeting JJ, to going to his city, to that sort of ridiculous journey through the planet core, to the Queen's City, to rescuing her, to stealing a ship, to a space battle, to looking for a place to hide until finally getting to Tatooine. After 30 minutes, they meet Anakin and go to his house and they finally calm down so you can get to know what the hell is going on. After that, its a pretty good movie. Way too much happening at the beginning. And I think that is what really got people off on the wrong foot with TPM.

All the others are much simpler. Clones is a little jumbled, but still the first 30 minutes is dedicated entirely to the plot against Padme. In ROTS the first 30 is rescuing the Chancellor, in ANH it is getting the plans to Obi-Wan, ESB its Hoth and Jedi its Rescue Han.

Its not like I can't appreciate the problems with the movies. There are certainly some problems. But I find that what it adds to the overall Star Wars conversation is well worth it.

Timber

[QUOTE=princethomas;11058424]
All the others are much simpler. Clones is a little jumbled, but still the first 30 minutes is dedicated entirely to the plot against Padme. In ROTS the first 30 is rescuing the Chancellor, in ANH it is getting the plans to Obi-Wan, ESB its Hoth and Jedi its Rescue Han.
QUOTE]

I actually think RoTS has the best first 20 or so minutes out of all the movies. The "space" battle is done really well and the Palpatine/Dooku/Anakin stuff is good also.

The new Death Star and Vader heralding the arrival of the Emperor in RoTJ is pretty good too.

Draven

ROTS has a great opening. Taking the same characters from a huge space battle to a lightsaber duel back to a massive spaceship crash made for an exciting 20 or so minutes. Fairly downhill from there, but only the Darth Maul lightsaber fights save TPM and AOTC really has nothing interesting going for it in hindsight. The fight in the asteroids is about it. I always thought the Yoda stuff was laughably dumb.

I have zero interest in seeing this in the theater but I might take my 7-year old. I have the originals on Blu but refuse to buy the prequels. This would be the only way he'll see them in my house

Shannon Nutt

Yep, ROTS is far and away the best of the prequels...it's actually about as good as ROTJ, which is to say not great...but not god-awful like TPM and AOTC. I really like the lightsaber dual in ROTS. It includes probably my favorite John Williams piece of the prequels (I even like it better than Duel of the Fates).

bunkaroo

I just watched all the Blu-ray's this week, and the one area where the PT is just as good as the OT is in the score. All of the new themes as well as the blending in of the originals really helps the films feel like Star Wars.

I am still able to enjoy the prequels provided I don't watch them more than once every couple years.

Strevlac

The best thing about the prequels are John Williams scores, but even then they are not a patch on his work in the original trilogy (or anything else he composed from 1975 to 1983).

Ky-Fi

I agree. I'm not sure it's the best of the prequels, but to me it does feel like the only one that captures some of the original vibe. The biggie for me is real actors and stuntmen for the bulk of the lightsaber fights, which kind of went by the wayside in the next two (particularly with the crappy Yoda lightsaber fights). And of course, with the next two, you basically had Liam Neeson's screen time replaced with Haydn Christensen---not a plus.

Superboy

Wow, I didn't think it was possible for people to be totally absorbed in movies that they hate.

PopcornTreeCt

I like the Phantom Menace because of Liam Neeson. He trained Obi-Wan Kenobi AND Batman.

mcnabb

Actually, I don't think this PT/OT debate would be as strong if Lucas would have just put the OOT versions out on DVD (in good quality) and BluRay. Because fans like me can't watch the OOT in good quality and the only versions that are out are the SE which HAS PT characters in those versions, then you are going to get more hatred for them then if they weren't in there.

The ironic thing is if Lucas would have put out the OOT on BluRay, alot of fans like me wouldn't even bother with Star Wars anymore because we would have the 3 movie versions we truly love and be done with it. And the PT/SE/Clone War TV fans could have the present-day to keep enjoying whatever Lucas puts out. Sure there are going to be fans that bitch about anything Lucas does on the internet, but it would be a small minority compared to what it is now. You never see silly debates between Lord of the Rings Theatrical Version fans vs Extended Versions, or Terminator Theatrical Version fans arguing with Directors Cut version fans? Because everybody can enjoy what they want, so they dont really care about the other side.

But because Lucas is such a stubborn bastard and is going to string out fans like me since the inception of DVD in 1997, and pollute the OT with images like Hayden Christenson at the end of Return of the Jedi (A PT character), you are going to continue to have these stupid battles between PT and OT fans.

Abob Teff

If Peter Jackson were to re-release LOTR with:
King Kong replacing the Balrog ...
A scene where Gandolf reveals he is Frodo's father ...
And a scene where Bilbo shoots first ...

... you would hear it.

Drexl

How about replacing Ian Holm in the flashback in FOTR (where the young Bilbo finds the ring) with Martin Freeman?

I'm not sure I'd want it, but I bet some people would like it.

Giles

Jay G.

The new Hobbit film has bookends where Ian Holm is reprising his role as the older Bilbo.

Aside from the Extended Editions, Peter Jackson has been fairly reticent about going back and reworking the films. The commentary for FOTR had him commenting that about possibly revising the few shots of Gollum in that film in order to fit with the CGI model used in the later films, but even that hasn't been changed yet, even though it seems fairly minor and unlikely to piss off many fans.

LosingMyMind

New posters, spoilered for size.

My Other Self

I like the the Darth Maul-centric ones.