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Author
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Topic: Review - Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (DVD)
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Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 11-21-2001 02:46 AM
   
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
DVD Edition
Written and Directed by George Lucas
Starring Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd and Ian McDiarmid
Co-Starring Anthony daniels, Kenny Baker, Pernilla August, Frank Oz
20th Century Fox, 133 minutes, 1999
(Buy it from Amazon - $22.95)DT: OK, rather than fight it out amongst ourselves who gets to review this disc, let's do this Ebert and Roeper style.
KO: OK. Since I'm eating nachos as we write, I'll be Ebert. I sure did love the extra features on this disc. They almost made the extra crap Lucas added to the movie worthwhile.
DT: Should I assume from the fact that you skipped right to the extra features that you don't want to discuss the film, or are we just going to leave that for later?
KO: Well, when I said "extra crap Lucas added to the movie," I was referring to the film. Let's start with the new and improved podrace sequence. What did you think?
DT: Since I thought the original podrace sequence was a bit long, the two deleted scenes were even more gratuitous, even if some of the action in the second lap was kind of neat.
KO: I didn't have a problem with the podrace initially, but I'm not about to argue with someone who wishes it were a little shorter. My problem with the podrace in the first place was that the characters seemed really biologically unlikely, which made it harder to take the film as a whole seriously. The newer scenes, including the guy with the antlers and the extended family of the one racer, were just plain silly, and took a lot away from a sequence that was supposed to be showcasing a pretty dangerous sport. I guess I did have a problem with the podrace initially after all. :-)
DT: It speaks to a problem Lucas and the CG creature creators had throughout the film -- once they were freed from the limits of costumes and puppets, they were free to go crazy, and they used that freedom to go cartoony more often than not.
KO: Well, for all the potential complaints about Jar Jar, I thought he at least looked somewhat realistic. At least by Star Wars standards.
DT: More often than not, definitely -- but things like the podrace announcers, or Qui-Gon grabbing Jar Jar's tongue seemed a bit off. The tone of the film went back and forth between that kind of cartoonishness and earnest seriousness. All that said -- I liked this movie. I liked it when it came out, and I like it now.
KO: I liked this movie quite a bit. I'm kind of intrigued that, when viewed in order, the entire series will be a series of events that's essentially controlled by the bad guy -- Palpatine -- who has behind-the-scenes yet prominent roles in the first and last chapters, though his appearances in between are spotty. From the viewers' point of view, it's a great story about redemption from and triumph over evil, but from the point of view of the major mover and shaker of the whole historical process, it's a story about how a detail can come back to bite you on the ass. I like that.
DT: Absolutely. What I also liked about this film -- and which I don't think some people give it credit for -- is that in its way, it's a dark story. The main villain accomplishes all his major goals, and even though there's a big celebration at the end, we know it's a hollow victory. That said, Lucas did cram a lot of plot and introductions in here, and did not always quite succeed in pulling it off.
KO: Yeah, and if at any point we're tempted to think it's a happy ending, there are a few major pieces of forshadowing there in the end to remind us that life is still likely to stink for a few chapters. Where didn't he pull it off?
DT: The political maneuvering and relationships between Naboo, the Senate, the Jedi and the Republic, for starters. Even the opening crawl seems a bit off -- the intro to Star Wars talked about a civil war and a rebellion's first victory. This movie talks about trade and taxation disputes. Not quite as exciting. Plus, a lot of the Tatooine stuff seems like a detour. An important detour, because we meet Anakin, but a detour nonetheless, one that interrupts the story of the queen trying to save her people. |
Kevin Ott
True Believer
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posted 11-21-2001 02:47 AM
KO: I agree, though I will speak out in favor of the political infighting that Palpatine coordinates in the Senate. I thought the scenes he shared with the queen on Coruscant were the most interesting parts of the movie that didn't involve lightsabers. And the vote-of-no-confidence scene was good if only for the way Terence Stamp portrayed the shock and hopelessness of a betrayed leader. It also put a seed of wonder in my mind as to whether Palpatine was using some sort of Jedi mojo on Amidala to get her to make the move she did. I think the possibility that he didn't use a Jedi mind trick on her makes him all the more frightful an opponent.
DT: Agreed on all counts, especially the implications of him not using the mind trick -- but the backstory there was so dense that I think it bogged down the movie a bit, trying to combine action, fantasy and political intrigue. It's the sort of situation where I can see why so many people didn't like this movie, but I had a fun time watching it. It felt like a Star Wars story to me, and it put the pieces in place for what ought to be two darned good movies.
KO: Hmm. That gets me thinking that it may have been a better story without the podrace. Because, really, there are lots of ways to show that someone is technically prodigious. But then I hear the sound Sebulba's pod makes, and I'm glad the scene was there after all.
DT: It speaks to one problem that the movie does have -- it all feels a bit contrived. They happen to land on Tatooine, they happen to run into this amazingly powerful kid, he happens to be the guy who creates a familiar character, and so on and so on.
KO: Don't you think we could say that under any circumstances? I mean, they had to meet Anakin, and we knew that. So there's a chance that any situation in which the characters met him could seem contrived.
DT: I guess that I would not have minded hitting the ground running in this case. As much as I liked Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn, why did we have to find Anakin as a boy on a distant planet? Why couldn't we have started with him as a resident of the Republic, already apprenticed to Obi-Wan? Now, it may be that in the next two films Lucas gives us good reasons for doing what he did -- but the fact that this is an opening chapter doesn't mean that it doesn't have to stand on its own as an engaging narrative.
KO: Well, maybe it does stand on its own as an engaging narrative, but we'll never know, since we know what Anakin has to turn out to be. It's impossible for us to ever know, I think, how Phantom Menace will be on its own. I hear what you're saying, but we know that Anakin returns to Tatooine in Attack of the Clones, or at the very least he interacts with the slaveowner who owns his mother. So I'm thinking his childhood, and the development of Shmi, will be revisited in Episode II.
DT: Probably, although this might be a situation where a few lines of dialogue (or even something in the opening crawl) might have saved us a lot of storytime. But all in all, I take it we're agreed -- a fun movie, even if it has its flaws.
KO: Totally. Plus, hey: Darth Maul. Anyway, what did you like about the special features?
DT: Well, I'd say they're the reason to get the disc, or at least the clincher of the deal. We've already talked about the first two deleted scenes included on Disc Two; I pretty much felt the same about the other five. Nice to see as extras, some of them were fun, but I'm glad they were left out of the movie, and the ones that got put back in only take away from the film. None of them really seemed necessary, and the scene where Anakin gets into a fistfight would totally ruin the way Lucas was trying to set him up as a pure, good boy. (I'm one of the few people who think that choice was a good one on Lucas' part, but hey.)
KO: I agree, and I think that the Greedo reference would have just been too cute. |
Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 11-21-2001 02:48 AM
DT: The documentary built around the deleted scenes is kind of nice, although I think we both felt that the behind-the-scenes information on the effects for one of those scenes was a little too detailed.
KO: I assume you're talking about the waterfall scene here.
DT: That I am.
KO: I totally agree. I was ready to chew off my own foot. The Web documentaries, on the other hand, were pure genius.
DT: Absolutely -- this is the heart and soul of the DVD for me. 12 three-to-five minute documentaries that originally appeared on starwars.com during the making of Episode I, five longer documentaries that were (I believe) part of the theatrical promotional push, and a brand-new one hour film called 'The Beginning." These documentaries, culled from hours of archival footage, were fascinating to me, watching so many people put their creative efforts into making this film.
KO: It's amazing to see how incredibly specific things can get, and how many great stories there are within the construction of a greater story. And I imagine the documentaries that were given to us just scratch the surface of the stories that could have been told.
DT: Absolutely -- even with everything on this disc, you're still talking about maybe two hours out of hundreds of hours of footage shot. But you get to see a lot of little human moments that go into such an undertaking. I loved watching the creature designers for this film give a tour to Stuart Freeborn, the man who made a lot of the masks and creatures for the original films.
KO: That was a good one. I also liked seeing some of the reactions of the designers who spent days coming up with hundreds of designs for ships, costumes, aliens, or whatever, only to have Lucas ignore everything but one drawing.
DT: What was your impression of Lucas overall, from the documentaries and the audio commentary track?
KO: He seems like a more interesting person when he's making the movies than when he's talking about making them. He seemed pretty concerned with saying "thematic elements" as many times as possible during the commentary track, though I did think he split his time nicely between the technical and storytelling aspects of the film. But you get to see the real Lucas when he's working. And he seems pretty single-minded -- I imagine he's not the easiest boss in the world to work for.
DT: Although I groaned when I heard him describe the saying 'I have a bad feeling about this' as a 'thematic note' that is repeated throughout the films, I was gratified to know that he was deliberately creating similarities between this trilogy and the original trilogy -- it's an interesting creative choice, and I still don't know how I feel about it. And while I agree he seems like a demanding guy, he seems pretty easygoing about it too -- the kind of guy you want to work hard for. It was also fun, in the documentaries, to see the glimpses of him as a family man.
KO: Yeah, one of my favorite scenes was where his kids got to watch Ewan McGregor get his hair cut. And it was obvious they didn't know who he was, which might (or, admittedly, might not) be a good indication that Lucas keeps a close eye on the movies his kids watch, based on McGregor's prior roles. I think that Having A Bad Feeling is little more than a nice touch -- almost an auter thing that lets you know you're watching a Star Wars movie.
DT: Other than Lucas, McGregor is probably the star of the documentary stuff -- his personality shines through here, and it's so removed from Obi-Wan Kenobi that I couldn't help a) admiring his acting and b) enjoying his enthusiasm.
KO: "They said, 'Do you wanna do Star Wars?' and I said, 'Too f%&*in' right.'" Great stuff.
DT: Definitely. The contrast to this is Jake Lloyd -- I feel kinda bad for the kid. There's a scene that shows him signing his contract, and he's surround by coaches and family and whatnot . . . and maybe this is an unfair judgment, but he seems so naive, so unaware of what's going on, that I felt a little dirty at the idea of so many adults having their claws in him. |
Kevin Ott
True Believer
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posted 11-21-2001 02:49 AM
KO: Now that you mention it, that is kind of creepy. The scene where he's mispronouncing "Coruscant" is kind of embarrassing as well. What did you think of [producer Rick] McCallum?
DT: Another example where the at-work person is a lot more interesting than the talking-about-the-work person. When the documentary crews catch him in action, he seems like a capable leader, organizing the details and making the production happen. When he's doing interviews, it's mostly, 'This was so cool, and it was a wonderful experience, and we were so glad to be able to get this to be the way George wanted it." He's kind of mastered the art of talking while playing his cards close to the vest.
KO: He seemed to handle the storm that tore the set to pieces pretty well. So did Lucas, for that matter, but then, the camera was on them when they were handling it.
DT: Yeah, but I think what the camera shows captures the reality -- the documentarians are willing to show Lucas being critical of Lloyd, or Lucas' less-than-thrilled reaction to the viewing of the rough cut.
KO: Good point. As for the rest of the material, it seemed pretty standard -- the stills gallery, the trailers and TV spots (which I'm glad he included), the weblink -- all were great stuff. Do you think we would have been better off had Lucas held off on releasing this until after he released the IV-V-VI trilogy on DVD?
DT: Well, there's one comment that I saw in another review that I'll pick up on here. It might have been nice to get the whole package at once, so that rather than say things like, 'This will become clearer in the next movies," they could have discussed the six films as a completed story. Other than that minor caveat, I can't think of any content here that would have been improved by waiting, and the timing of the disc was perfect to start boosting enthusiasm for Episode II.
KO: You think that enthusiasm needs to be boosted?
DT: It did in my case. I was rather ho-hum about the idea of Ep II until I went through the documentary features on this DVD.
KO: Whyzat?
DT: Why was I ho-hum? Because I felt a little bit burned by the hype, I think. I liked Episode I, but I don't love it the way I love the original trilogy. Why am I less ho-hum now? Because watching the DVD and the extra features made me want to see what all the design artists and others working with Lucas will come up with this time.
KO: OK: How many stars overall, our of ten?
DT: Six and a half to the original, six to the extended DVD version, seven if I skip straight to the lightsaber duel at the end.
KO: Seven to the original, six to the DVD version, and ten if I watch the lightsaber duel and nothing else.
KO: Favorite queen outfit?
DT: The red outfit at the very beginning, followed closely by the black outfit in which she talks to Palpatine and the celebration gown at the end.
KO: I'd say the one she wore on Coruscant with the beads hanging down is my favorite, followed by the celebration gown, followed by the Theed gown. Favorite DVD feature?
DT: "The Beginning: Making Episode I." It's also my second, third and possibly fourth favorite.
KO: I'd have to agree. Favorite Gungan officer?
DT: Tarpals.
KO: Definitely. Least favorite pseudobiological explanation of The Force?
DT: “I was wondering . . . what are midichlorians?” Which is also a nominee for least favorite line of dialogue, by the way.
KO: If Lucas was going for that retro third-grade filmstrip vibe, he did great. Otherwise, yucko.
DT: You have a real problem with third-grade filmstrips, I've noticed. Favorite new design for the prequels?
KO: I'd have to go with the double-ended lightsaber.
DT: Senate chamber for me, but [artist] Chris Gossett's lightsaber is right up there.
KO: I also liked the Sith chopper that Darth Maul rode.
DT: Another good choice. Favorite Jedi?
KO: If 1,000 more Star Wars movies are made, it will always be Obi-Wan.
DT: In this movie, my vote goes to Qui-Gon.
KO: There was a little too much Liam Neeson in Qui-Gon for me. Favorite entirely CG character?
DT: Tarpals, by default.
KO: I'd go with Watto. Favorite planet?
DT: Coruscant.
KO: Totally. Favorite Jedi who's a sex machine to all the chicks?
DT: I'm gonna leave this one blank. I love Sam Jackson, but Mace Windu didn't do anything for me. I fully expect that to change in Episode II.
KO: I liked his interaction with Yoda. At one point they shared a look that gave me a new respect for the potential for actors to work with puppets.
DT: I'll take another look.
KO: Anyway. I think we're done, unless there's anything else you'd like to touch on.
DT: Nope, I think we’ve just about analyzed this to death. For now.  | |
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