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The Star Wars Saga Rewatch Thread (Saturdays, Oct. 21 to Dec. 9)

DonShula

Member
Can I just leave this here for the folks who do a synchronized viewing later today? Ok great you guys are the best.

I’ve watched Episode I many times, but this particular time, I was struck by the pod racing scene. Traditionally, it’s been viewed as superfluous and a negative, at least from a plot perspective. That’s how I felt going in. But when you contrast that scene with basically the entire movie up to that point, things get weird. It’s still unnecessary, but it’s also shot and edited a hell of a lot better. And within itself, the sequence and the cuts make sense. The framing is deliberate, the editing is snappy, and it moves along at a nice pace, even if you think it takes up too much of the movie or shouldn’t be there to begin with. It’s simply the polar opposite of everything that comes before it: generically framed shots of people sitting around talking.

Also on rewatch, I’m seeing less of a reason to hate Jake Lloyd. Dude’s a kid. I have kids that age now and the performance seems fine for a Star Wars movie. Especially a movie where Liam Neeson and Samuel L Jackson are sleepwalking across the screen.

I’m still not finished with it yet, but I swear I’m gonna get there today 😬
 

sphagnum

Banned
I have never understood the Jake Lloyd hate. He did fine. He wasnt Haley Joel Osment or anything and he can't help it if he got bad dialogue, but he was perfectly serviceable.

The pod race was obviously the thing Lucas wanted to do the most, hence why it's so good.
 

DonShula

Member
Yeah you can tell whoever (Lucas) put the pod race sequence together really loved what they were doing. That’s why it’s so weird to me that other parts of this movie are in the final cut looking like deleted scenes.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Since we're watching Episode I tomorrow, let's turn the clock back all the way 1999, when people paid to watch Meet Joe Black just for a trailer and millions of Americans skipped work to line up for this party of mediocrity.

L8g9ZA.gif


Makes me want to watch the trailers for each movie too

Also makes me wish I’d ripped my bluray to plex rather than settling for dvd rips. So low res.
 

MMarston

Was getting caught part of your plan?
Minor complaint

One of the many things that I couldn't wrap my head around Episode I was this dopey looking guy.

e163.jpg


Not exactly sure what ILM was trying to go for here, because this puppet is way off-base than the original look in ESB/ROTJ. In those movies, Yoda looked organic and even cute by 1980s standards, not to mention his expression were pretty well animated for a puppet. The only noticeable downside with him there is that his rubbery-ness sticks out at certain points.

The Episode I puppet though? Almost as if it was straight out of The Muppets, in that he looked like he was only capable of moving his eyes and mouth for expressions. That and his parts look blocky.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Minor complaint

One of the many things that I couldn't wrap my head around Episode I was this dopey looking guy.

e163.jpg


Not exactly sure ILM was trying to go for here, because this puppet is way off-based than the original look in ESB/ROTJ. In those movies, Yoda looked organic and even cute by 1980s standards, not to mention his expression were pretty well animated for a puppet. The only noticeable downside with him there is that his rubbery-ness sticks out at certain points.

The Episode I puppet though? Almost as if it was straight out of The Muppets, in that he looked like he was only capable of moving his eyes and mouth for expressions. That and his parts look blocky.


He kind of looks like Mark Hamill now
 

MMarston

Was getting caught part of your plan?
I have never understood the Jake Lloyd hate. He did fine. He wasnt Haley Joel Osment or anything and he can't help it if he got bad dialogue, but he was perfectly serviceable.

Like Hayden, it was mostly the writing that did him in. In my last rewatch before TFA, I noticed that he was saying "Yippee" and "Oops" way more than a typical kid should. In addition to that, a bunch of them also sounded ADRd, which can explain why he literally does sound like he's reading out lines than performing them.

Whatever the case, I never got the seething hatred for the kid regardless of his overall performance. Same way I saw young Justin Bieber -- I never liked his music, but I'll never know why that had to be a good reason for people to wish a 12 year old kid dead.
 

JCHandsom

Member
Shit almost forgot

Tonight's synchronized viewing will be at 4PST/7EST.



Can't wait for the Jar Jar gifs in this thread.

I work on Saturdays, so I'll probably be a day or two behind in my thoughts, but I'm right there with you all.

I've watched Episode I many times, but this particular time, I was struck by the pod racing scene. Traditionally, it's been viewed as superfluous and a negative, at least from a plot perspective. That's how I felt going in. But when you contrast that scene with basically the entire movie up to that point, things get weird. It's still unnecessary, but it's also shot and edited a hell of a lot better. And within itself, the sequence and the cuts make sense. The framing is deliberate, the editing is snappy, and it moves along at a nice pace, even if you think it takes up too much of the movie or shouldn't be there to begin with. It's simply the polar opposite of everything that comes before it: generically framed shots of people sitting around talking.

Yeah, that's the feeling I got watching Episode 1 3D in theaters. It's still super superfluous, but it's a marked improvement over everything else in terms of cinematography and editing.
 
Like Hayden, it was mostly the writing that did him in. In my last rewatch before TFA, I noticed that he was saying "Yippee" and "Oops" way more than a typical kid should. In addition to that, a bunch of them also sounded ADRd, which can explain why he literally does sound like he's reading out lines than performing them.

Whatever the case, I never got the seething hatred for the kid regardless of his overall performance. Same way I saw young Justin Bieber -- I never liked his music, but I'll never know why that had to be a good reason for people to wish a 12 year old kid dead.

Are you sure the acrimony toward Mr. Lloyd was that extreme that fans were wishing him death? I know that it's popular to crap on his performance, but doesn't that go to say for everyone that participated in these films? Natalie Portman is a fine actress, but you wouldn't know that watching her in these films. And her role was arguably as important to the relationship as Anakin's was.
 
Like Hayden, it was mostly the writing that did him in. In my last rewatch before TFA, I noticed that he was saying "Yippee" and "Oops" way more than a typical kid should. In addition to that, a bunch of them also sounded ADRd, which can explain why he literally does sound like he's reading out lines than performing them.

Whatever the case, I never got the seething hatred for the kid regardless of his overall performance. Same way I saw young Justin Bieber -- I never liked his music, but I'll never know why that had to be a good reason for people to wish a 12 year old kid dead.

It's crazy how Lucas had up-and-coming, but known actors, and couldn't get good performances out of them, and contrast that with the performances of the even more untested actors in TFA.
 

Ogodei

Member
The prequel trilogy is a case where the whole is made less than the sum of its parts. You've got bits of good acting, some awesome set-pieces, beautiful scenery, John Williams at his best, and some fairly clever and meaningful themes woven into the story by Lucas, but it's all botched in the execution phase.

I feel like if he had just gotten someone to help with the screenplay, you'd have a bunch of B+ A- movies instead of the C/D+ movies you got.

A good argument could be made that Episode I is suprefluous to the worldbuilding. That you could've had the events of Episode II be Ep I, then tell a mid Clone Wars story as Ep II, and then keep Ep III as it was. But Episode I goes a good way to establishing what things were like before the Dark Times, with the beauty of Naboo contrasted by the lawless poverty of Tatooine and the wealth and corruption of Coruscant above all. It's a glimpse of the era that Obi-Wan alluded to as one of peace and innocence, and we can see that his story was rose-colored.

That's really the purpose of the PT in my eyes. It kind of deconstructs the OT with its clear heroes and villains, Jedi good/Sith bad, and shows how the Jedi and the Republic were as much at fault for their own downfall as Palpatine was. The rot was already there, Palpatine just had to know where to push to find it.

The new trilogy seems to be carrying on that spirit of moral ambiguity that the PT introduced, especially what it looks like TLJ is going to say about the Jedi and how essential they are for the universe (perhaps going full "Kreia in KOTOR II" on us).
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Just finished my watching.

Positives
- Jake Lloyd isn’t so bad. More likely a victim of shocking writing than anything else. Occasionally he's pretty natural, but lines like 'now *this* is pod Racing!’ were just horrible. Overall I think he comes out of it pretty well.
- Darth Maul is awesome and the fight scenes at the end are great. He really brings a lot of energy to proceedings, and little touches like poking the energy shields or scraping the side of the shaft impatiently are good.

Negatives
- pod racing is still hackneyed. I suppose it’s fairly well shot and the CG isn’t horrible, but it’s just so rote that it is difficult to feel anything. Ramshackle old racer suddenly works well; starts way back from the pack but comes back strongly (multiple times); fast and furious classic of shifting down a gear suddenly making the car go faster is replicated here by pushing his sticks forward. It's soo 'racing' tropey that I can’t engage with it.

- jar jar. Fucking hell

- the overarching plot. This is the big one for me. It was confusing when I first watched it, but I went in thinking 'ah, this time I know how it all links in through to episode 3, so let’s see how it starts'. I still can’t remember how it shapes up. Episode 1 ends too neatly. I thought the droid army had to remain a threat for palpating to do his clone shit, but there is no foreshadowing of that at all in this episode, it is too self contained. Kind of curious to see where episode 2 goes with it - I’ve genuinely forgotten where all the different elements roll out over the trilogy.
 

DonShula

Member
Good call on John Williams. Forgot to mention the juxtaposition of his kickass score over that completely botched scene where Anakin leaves his mother and everyone involved is like “eh, yeah, she’s still a slave, never see you again, deuces.”
 

TheXbox

Member
If you guys are interested, try doing this while watching the prequel episodes:

Pretend that at some point in episode 3 there was going to be a scene in which the politician Palpatine was revealed to be a clone with no force powers, created by Sidious as a Trojan horse to get into office. This clone is then killed and Sidious takes the role of the politician.

If you are capable of playing along with this then, from the start of TPM and through much of RotS, you will see literally dozens of clues in dialogue, editing, shot composition, etc that strongly suggest that Sidious and Palpatine are the literal same being, but nothing is ever explicit. Also note how much time is devoted to explaining decoys, clones, and midichlorians.

I realize that everyone has stupid theories about SW, but once you see this, you can't unsee it. I don't claim to be an expert, but I am responsible for the single greatest prediction in SW history: that a third trilogy would be announced and when. I was off by a couple months.

So give this a shot. You probably already hate the movies, but maybe you will hate them even more knowing that Lucas abandoned this plot that would have fixed some of the common complaints.
I prefer to imagine a scene where Sheev sneaks into his closet and clumsily dons his evil black robes (which he keeps hidden beneath his sock drawer) before addressing his subordinates with a holographic message. He has to whisper when he uses Sith voice.
 

BFIB

Member
Watched Episode 1 this morning. Here's my thoughts, but first, my own fanfiction:

-Maul should be the focus of this trilogy. It should have been about him being Sidious' apprentice, seeing the world through his eyes as he witnesses Palpatine's rise to power. Maul and Anakin should have been lined up from the start as the main antagonist/protagonist with Maul killing Anakin's parents (yes, parents) to take his next steps towards fulfilling whatever destiny Palpatine has in his mind, only at the end to be played the pawn to seduce Anakin in the end and kill Maul in full rage.

Ok, now on to what actually happened:

-There's a lot of scenes that are actually well done here. I really liked the beginning part (although I hated how fast Lucas made Obi-Wan/Qui Gon move to run from danger). The whole "send in a droid" part encapsulates droids in general in the universe. You could tell George still had a somewhat grasp on his OT vision here in some scenes.
-The podracing scene is still incredible to watch.
-Qui Gon was a great character, its a shame he was killed off so quickly. I thought halfway through the first that he is going to be the one to teach Anakin to not only use the light side, but perhaps at times, feel the need to use the dark side of the force as well.
-Yes, Midichlorians are a terrible plot device, and having Anakin essentially born from them will never make sense.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Is the entire cast of shortland street in the prequel trilogy? Other than Fett, I think the pilot of the ship in the opening scene bringing the Jedi to Naboo was also in it. Did they film a lot in NZ?
 

MMarston

Was getting caught part of your plan?
-There's a lot of scenes that are actually well done here. I really liked the beginning part (although I hated how fast Lucas made Obi-Wan/Qui Gon move to run from danger). The whole "send in a droid" part encapsulates droids in general in the universe. You could tell George still had a somewhat grasp on his OT vision here in some scenes.

On that note, for all the visual design and variety 2 and 3 do, I also think Episode I is the most well put-together in terms of cinematography and aesthetic too. I mean, yeah, it's also ruined by outdated CGI effects, but the film grading and framing also had that tame, nuanced feel that the OT had as well. This also harkens back to my previous statement that it wasn't like its sequels in experimenting with digital filming yet. Even up until the climax of the third act, it at least felt easy on the eyes to watch.
 
Can I just leave this here for the folks who do a synchronized viewing later today? Ok great you guys are the best.

I’ve watched Episode I many times, but this particular time, I was struck by the pod racing scene. Traditionally, it’s been viewed as superfluous and a negative, at least from a plot perspective. That’s how I felt going in. But when you contrast that scene with basically the entire movie up to that point, things get weird. It’s still unnecessary, but it’s also shot and edited a hell of a lot better. And within itself, the sequence and the cuts make sense. The framing is deliberate, the editing is snappy, and it moves along at a nice pace, even if you think it takes up too much of the movie or shouldn’t be there to begin with. It’s simply the polar opposite of everything that comes before it: generically framed shots of people sitting around talking.

Also on rewatch, I’m seeing less of a reason to hate Jake Lloyd. Dude’s a kid. I have kids that age now and the performance seems fine for a Star Wars movie. Especially a movie where Liam Neeson and Samuel L Jackson are sleepwalking across the screen.

I’m still not finished with it yet, but I swear I’m gonna get there today 😬

The pod racing scene is honestly really well done imo. It's still a ton of fun to watch that part. The sound design is phenomenal! As an audio engineering student, I am in heaven during that part.
 

JCHandsom

Member
I always viewed midichlorians conceptually as a power-level indicator for the audience to sell just how powerful Anakin was in relation to the rest of the Jedi.

As if there wasn't already enough pushing for Anakin what with the whole Virgin Birth+Chosen One combo.
 

JCHandsom

Member
And the gun on the mantel just shows you the guy is a hunter...

If you're talking about the Opera scene, I think I'd rather use the gun to shoot myself.

EDIT: If you're talking about the clone thing, then that might have been an interesting angle if they explicitly included it, but even then I think it would have taken away too much of the Force's mysticism to pull off.
 

ascii42

Member
I always viewed midichlorians conceptually as a power-level indicator for the audience to sell just how powerful Anakin was in relation to the rest of the Jedi.

As if there wasn't already enough pushing for Anakin what with the whole Virgin Birth+Chosen One combo.
Basically, yeah. Wanted a way to quantify it.
 
If you guys are interested, try doing this while watching the prequel episodes:

Pretend that at some point in episode 3 there was going to be a scene in which the politician Palpatine was revealed to be a clone with no force powers, created by Sidious as a Trojan horse to get into office. This clone is then killed and Sidious takes the role of the politician.

If you are capable of playing along with this then, from the start of TPM and through much of RotS, you will see literally dozens of clues in dialogue, editing, shot composition, etc that strongly suggest that Sidious and Palpatine are the literal same being, but nothing is ever explicit. Also note how much time is devoted to explaining decoys, clones, and midichlorians.

I realize that everyone has stupid theories about SW, but once you see this, you can't unsee it. I don't claim to be an expert, but I am responsible for the single greatest prediction in SW history: that a third trilogy would be announced and when. I was off by a couple months.

So give this a shot. You probably already hate the movies, but maybe you will hate them even more knowing that Lucas abandoned this plot that would have fixed some of the common complaints.

Plot twist: The clone was never killed.

AJDYEiul.jpg
 
Phantom Menace is secretly the best prequel. It has a fairly original plot, a lot of original ideas and locations, some interesting concepts, but it just completely fails to bring them together into a cohesive whole. There's a parallel universe where TPM is actually a good movie with some edits to the script (and no, contrary to old internet myth, simply editing the existing film does not fix it).

If you guys are interested, try doing this while watching the prequel episodes:

Pretend that at some point in episode 3 there was going to be a scene in which the politician Palpatine was revealed to be a clone with no force powers, created by Sidious as a Trojan horse to get into office. This clone is then killed and Sidious takes the role of the politician.

I know this is an old rumor, but I do strongly suspect that Palpatine and Sidious were supposed to be different characters (in some way) at least during production of TPM. We know that Lucas made major changes to his prequel trilogy outline after the criticism and backlash from TPM, and I think that many of the continuity errors and other problems in AOTC and ROTS stem from these decisions. The plot of the prequels basically make no sense if Palpatine and Sidious are legitimately the same person.
 
I think the OP and some people who were planning to do the marathon left. I still plan to do this and hope others plan to do so as well.

Anyways, I will copy and paste what I posted in the community thread for TPM, which I watched last Sunday:

So fair warning, I'm a late comer to the Star Wars saga. My first Star Wars movie was TFA and then I went on to watch the Original Trilogy and then the PT, but I was actually on the computer the whole time and watching it in the background, this time, I tried to pay attention the whole time. While I can certainly see the harsh criticism and why diehard SW fans hate the movie, I don't think this movie is as bad as they make it out to be, it has some good moments, and the introduction of a very memorable character.

+ The pod race was a lot funner to watch this time around, even with some poor acting
+ Darth Maul, what a waste to kill him off
+ The story actually made sense to me this time, or at least I think it did lol. I will spoiler tag it just in case
Trade Federation wants to put sanctions in Naboo, the Taken guy and Obi Wan Kenobi go there to try to negotiate, can't, and they try to kill them. They rescue Queen Amidala and she goes before the courts to plead her case where Palpatine plays her. They then team up with the Gungans to create a diversion against the Trade Federation while they go to try to kill the Viceroy of the Trade Federation.
+ The whole backstory on how it starts to build up to the OT, I like some of those connections
+ Some of the new characters were fun and innovative. Gungan people were actually interesting as was the city. I believe those have potential to be explored in future iterations of the franchise. The flying slave owner bug was also interesting to me

- JarJar Binks is a lot more annoying when you pay attention to the movie
- CGI is horribly dated. I don't think CGI from the late 2000s until now will age that badly in 20 years if they are nicely done, but CGI from the late 90s early 2000s has aged pretty badly. The underwater sequence was pretty bad and fake looking. I bet the OT won't have aged as bad as this
- Young Anakin's acting was pretty bad
- Natalie Portman was checked out just like she was in Thor
- Poorly execution of the story and screenplay. While I liked the story overall, the execution and how it was played out was....lacking. I don't know how else to explain. It could have certainly been better executed
- Samuel L. Jackson has certainly had better acting scenes and roles
- Anakin's mother just being magically impregnated, I mean what the hell
 
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