Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace - Movie Review

[Music] May the 4th be with you it is Star Wars day and as promised on my Facebook and Twitter if you've been keeping up with me I'm going to be reviewing every single Star Wars theatrical film once a month until episode 7 this December and we are starting off with the best one episode one The Phantom Menace I'm kidding let's talk about it now I'm well aware there are plenty of fans of the prequels out there there's lots of people who enjoy these movies and they've had to endure people hating on them and trashing them for many many years and while there are fans of the prequels out there I think the majority of us can agree they were very disappointing movies and I'm going to do my best to do a level-headed review of The Phantom Menace because we're many years away from the release now we've all had time to process it we've all had time to think about it and in my notes I actually wrote don't hate on it unnecessarily just because you feel like it I'm going to do my best so it's almost impossible for to review this movie without giving a humongous thank you and shout out to Red Letter media because their review for The Phantom Menace is quite possibly my favorite movie review of all time they said everything that's to be said plus a whole bunch of things no one else ever thought of but as a massive Star Wars fan I have a lot of things to say this movie came out at a perfect time for me I was 11 when The Phantom Menace came out all of you people who are always wondering how old I am I'm 27 I was honestly the perfect age for this movie 11 I was right there at the cusp of getting into my teenage years but still a boy and still sitting in this movie theater as the movie began and the dialogue started something just felt off this is getting out of hand now there are two of them there are things I'm very thankful for phantom menis for like for instance episode one Pod racer on the Nintendo 64 or episode one battle for nibo I had so much fun with these games and I still enjoy playing them every once in a while I was collecting the Star Wars toys at the time like Darth Maul and Obi-Wan Kenobi and mace Wu and C3PO and I had all kinds of stuff I mean young Jedi cards I was so into it my friends and I even held pretend radio shows we recorded our voices onto cassette tape and tried to pretend to be Star Wars characters it was amazing hi my name is Christopher stuckman on The Late Late Late early show at 7:00 in the morning on channel five today our first guest's name is Luke Skywalker how you doing L good well that's good do you have an asthma attack and I also found an old TV guide from 1999 with an interview with Liam niss right before The Phantom Menace came out and the opening paragraph of said interview revealed quite a bit Liam niss was so eager to be in The Phantom Menace he accepted the role of the stern Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jin without reading one word of George Lucas's script oh in fact this movie had such an impact on the pop culture before it was released as well as afterwards that I came up with a term to describe it and I call it Phantom menacing any film can be Phantom menaced you can be so excited for this movie you feel like your entire life's happiness is riding on the success of this movie you get so pumped out of your mind that you might actually cry when you get the chance to see it then you see it and you leave the theater and you become in denial of about how bad it actually was and you stay in denial for many years until you eventually reveal to yourself you know what that wasn't that good and I'm not going to be a hypocrite about this I did this myself in 2008 with a little film called Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the Crystal Skull that was my exact experience with that movie as a fan at that age I was too young to really notice how stupid the special edition enhancements were but I saw them in theaters I was so excited for it I loved seeing the originals I was collecting the toys that were released at that time I had Star Wars pogs who else remembers pogs and as we're sitting in the theater we begin to realize we're watching a movie about political squabbling trade negotiations and peace treaty signings and backhanded politics and Senate meetings and when you actually read about how this movie was filmed and that they only Built sets for the backgrounds high enough to keep the actor's eyeline in frame and then they had to spend all this extra money cuz Liam niss is 6'4 to build higher sets when you think about that that's kind of funny but then you realize wait a second they only Built a couple walls Behind these actors and didn't even give them an environment or a room to really stand in that often they were basically just walking around a green or a blue screen room that doesn't help your actor at all and when you constantly tell your actor to go faster and more intense and that's all you say you're going to have performances that all feel the same and when you watch The Phantom Menace I challenge you to find a performance excluding jar jar that's not my people need help I want you to sign the peace treaty nothing can get through our Shields my name is Quon Jinn my name is Obi-Wan Kenobi my name is Anakin Skywalker are you an angel every performance in this movie is on the same level of emotion because there is no real actor director relationship going on here you can tell that even in more intense scenes where the fish is chasing after their boat underwat that everyone just feels like they're going through a drive in the country but as you watch the movie I challenge you to figure out who the main character of this movie is you can't it's not Qui-Gon it's not Obi-Wan Kenobi and it's not Anakin who's the main character of this movie Liam NES gets top billing so maybe Qui-Gon is in a way it almost seems like qui-gon's the main character of the movie but why would you do that who the hell is Quon he's an older Stern Jedi who is really Stern and what exactly is his character actually and then of course there's jar jar now look every single thing that could have been said about this thing has been said already so I'm just going to say one thing when he's first introduced and Qui-Gon Jinn says the ability to speak does not make you intelligent now get out of here I wish jar jar had listened but of course he had to go no no Misa stay Misa owe you a life and death this scoyy Floy Floy luy Scooby Dooby now re-watching this movie recently on my 1080p television I began to realize you know what this movie is starting to look very dated the CGI just doesn't hold up as well anymore because there's an over Reliance on it yes there is more attempts at practical imagery in The Phantom Menace than in the last two prequels but the overreliance on CGI and the constant attempts at just throwing so many computer generated images into one shot without any real composure or structure makes the entire film look very dated the original trilogy Still Remains Timeless save for a few shots where you can really tell that just doesn't look that great that's because they use real models that were tangible things in existence that are always going to be real things that were in existence filmed by an actual camera so it's always going to look good the over Reliance on the digital imagery in the prequels are now starting to make them look dated and eventually they're going to look even more dated and that is just one of the biggest technical flaws in this movie even for its time in 1999 the lifeless doll battle droids that can be cut in half in an instant provided absolutely no tension the Stormtroopers couldn't hit anything in the original films but at least they were people and you felt some tension there you really did feel suspense when the Jedi walk out and go and everything's just done that's cool they're badasses they're in their Prime we know we understand that excuse has been made for many years but that doesn't mean the movie's going to have any more suspense or tension that it could have in that action because everything looks so well choreographed and there's not even a lick of fear on their faces they don't look concerned at all so the overall plot of this movie is that the Trade Federation want to invade and Palpatine wants queen amadala to sign a peace treaty somehow making all of this work out for him in a way and he wants her to move for a vote of no confidence on Chancellor vorum so that he can then replace him in power and do his evil stuff in the background and yes there's a large portion of this movie dedicated to this in the original trilogy The Emperor's plan was to turn father against son use Vader to entice Luke to join the Dark Side this is an emotional internal battle and the emperor did all of that behind the scenes in such clever ways in this film his evil scheme is he really wants queen amadala to sign a paper now eventually the best part of this movie is introduced and that is Darth Maul now why is Darth Maul so awesome why does everyone like Darth Maul why is everyone sad that Darth Maul died at the end of this movie because he was one of the best characters why did so many expanded universe novels and even a television show decide to resurrect him because he doesn't have any lines he says like three things at last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi at last we will have Revenge if my traces were correct I will find him quickly master and there you go Darth Maul he looks awesome he sounds cool he's a badass he does his own stunts he's got an awesome lightsaber and he can kick Jedi asses and he's not even a Sith Master yet but he doesn't have hardly any lines to say so he barely has to say anything written by George Lucas that's a major Plus for a character in this movie now after this amazing teaser poster we were all really pumped to see what Anakin Skywalker was going to be like and George Lucas apparently saw jingle all the way and said yeah that kid that's who we need I just don't understand how certain takes for this movie were like yeah that's a good one I mean weren't people behind the scenes like watching going like I don't know about that man you'll never reach the outskirts in time sandstorms are very very dangerous no there really wasn't anyone because if you watch the documentary of this movie which is incredibly revealing it actually shows George Lucas after the first rough cut screening with the producers and various people and they all look like they're ready to jump off a cliff that's a little disjointed seems like a lot of short scenes it's bold in terms of jerking people around but I may have gone too far in a few places and just when you thought that the Star Wars saga couldn't get any more confusing George Lucas decided to introduce medoran into the mix that's right apparently everyone just has little microscopic organisms floating around the inside of their bodies and whoever listens to them correctly can understand the force it's not a mystical thing that binds us together with everyone in the Galaxy it's just these little organisms that live inside our body so I came to the Pod R sequence and I watched it through adult eyes now these are eyes that analyze movies I like to analyze the way shots are cut together the way sound is looped through a scene I like to look at the lighting I like to look at the way the camera moves and as I watched this scene I became aware of something that I've never noticed before in fact I've never heard anyone mention ever nearly every single shot in the pod race is from the right hand perspective of the pods and I would say about 80% of the shots are panning from left to right pan from left to right left to right left to right left to right left to right left to right left to right if you think I'm showing the same shot over and over again I'm not these are all different shots for some reason Lucas never thought to put the camera on the other side of the pods so you don't get a well-rounded view of this race and it becomes very stale because you're constantly seeing the same movement happen left to right left to right over and over again I can't believe I never noticed this I mean yeah there are shots like from straight on or from straight behind or a firstperson shot but I think there are maybe one or two shots that are actually on the leftand side it's nuts I never noticed this before the entire scene feels stale to me now and I'm sorry if I ruined it for anybody so once these characters finally get to corusant and go to the Jedi Council and we get to see y and mace Wu and all these people and Qui-Gon is trying to convince them that Anakin's got something special about him and they need to train him the inclusion of a humorless witless dry ass boring Yoda was an awful idea Anakin is the one who will eventually bring balance to the force this is the prophecy and here's the boy yet every single person on this council is like he's too old we don't like him go away just no he's not going to be trained shut up the Jedi in this movie are dicks I'm serious when you actually watch this movie and you hear about them constantly saying the Sith Menace and the Mystery of the Sith and Qui-Gon you should go out and do something about that and they just sit around in a room and go yes that's all they do in the movie they don't actually do anything finally in Attack of the Clones they got like a thousand Jedi just in a room just fighting where were they when Darth Maul was cutting people in half now throughout this entire corusant sequence it is some some of the most boring Adventure serial fun awesome science fiction film making I've ever seen in my life throughout this entire sequence and I call it a sequence even though it's like a half an hour's worth of various scenes I call it a sequence CU it just feels like this giant thing that won't go away everyone is just sitting and talking walking and talking one person sits while another person walks and talks everyone just keeps sitting around in rooms and talking there's a basic rule of screenwriting guys and what that is is if you have to have a talking scene that doesn't do that much of an intense nature and you really just need this scene where people are talking to maybe Advance a few plot points along try to put it in a location or have something going on that's interesting for instance in JJ Abrams original Star Trek film when bones and Kirk have to have some expository dialogue they decided to have a scene in which Kirk's hands blow up from this injection that bones gave him and they have to run around trying to heal Kirk but they're also giving the dialogue that's needed at that time now that makes for a humorous scene a fun and exciting scene while also giving you the necessary dialogue that's how you do a talking scene that doesn't have that much to do with the plot not just people sitting around going yes that's a good idea oh I move for a vote of no confidence in chancelor vorum who gives a seriously who cares this movie was made for kids you really think they're going to sit down and watch that a senate meeting now once we finally get to the finale of this movie most of us are just excited to see something happening besides a trade dispute Darth Maul Qui-Gon Jin and Obi-Wan are having a pretty cool lightsaber battle I actually really like this lightsaber battle I will not lie it's a lot of fun John Williams duel the faith song is brilliant I actually had the privilege of hearing him perform it live in concert that was awesome I remember hearing it before seeing the movie I was so excited I was listening to it going oh my gosh this is going to be the best movie of all time oh my goodness Grace this movie is going to be so amazing ah yes but I do really like this lightsaber fight even though nothing of much internal conflict is going on it's really just two Jedi and a guy and they're cool and they're in a cool room and it's got effects and it's cool and Oban should have totally used his speedrun to go through the red Blaster door area but of course he didn't because screenplay by George Lucas so Anakin's flying around in an aboose star fighter and he eventually blows up the ship and everything but something about that scene always bothered me he's got a child-sized helmet in the cockpit now can you imagine how much better of a scene it would have been if he had to wear an ad adult sized helmet and it didn't fit and he had to try to see out of it it would have been fun it would have made the scene more entertaining if he actually had to try to fit into an adult helmet but no he has the convenient child siiz helmet just there for some reason it's these various ideas that could have been in so many scenes to make them better that Lucas never thinks of so the best character in the whole movie gets cut in half after Qui-Gon Jen dies and says you have to train the boy please it's my dying wish please train the boy he will bring balance so Obi-Wan is then forced to train Anakin even though he doesn't want to and apparently Yoda's fine with it all of a sudden he's like agree with you the council does but you just like 20 minutes ago said no like what changed it's just kind of stupid that Obi-Wan is forced to train Anakin in all honesty Qui-Gon Jinn shouldn't have even been in this movie it should have just been Obi-Wan Kenobi he finds Anakin cuz they're supposed to be friends nothing in The Phantom Menace is hey Obi-Wan and Anakin it's just like hey you're a kid and I'm on a ship complaining about the weather and blah blah blah and that's it now guys completely honest talk here The Phantom Menace is not Battlefield Earth bad it's not Troll 2 bad it's just a vastly disappointing movie and when I say that I mean that it really really is a disappointing movie if you like it that's fine but I just don't understand that but that's me if you like it that's cool man you're allowed you're allowed to like The Phantom Menace I just don't personally I'm going to give Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace a c minus now after that review you may have been thinking wow he's going to give it a n or something but I'm being realistic you can sit down and watch this movie and it has some entertaining scenes it's a very below average movie and that is not good because every other Star Wars film previous was as close to perfect as I wanted it to be so the fact that this movie is that bad even is really awful so guys as promised once a month I'm going to be reviewing every every theatrical Star Wars film stay tuned next month for Attack of the Clones I'm really excited for this guys and thank you so much again as always for watching happy May the 4th day and if you like this you can click right here and get stuck minized [Music]

Channel: Chris Stuckmann

Views: 1,824,576

Keywords: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Movie Review, Chris Stuckmann, Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid, Ahmed Best, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Frank Oz, Ray Park, George Lucas, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Darth Maul, Lightsaber, Fight, Duel, Ending, Scene, Clip, Full Movie, Trailer, Teaser, Reviews, Podrace, Podracing, Episode VII, Force Awakens

Id: EUXx-A5khOw

Length: 18min 21sec (1101 seconds)

Published: Mon May 04 2015