The most basic Star Wars question...

It's a matter of opinion. I'm a huge fan of DP David Tattersall, who shot all three movies, and I also really liked the art direction. It's not so much how much CG is there -- it's a question of color and style.

Me personally, I think there's a thousand movies out there that have far too much CG, and I prefer films that have more reality to them. But it depends very much on the film. It worked fine for me in Avatar, as one example.

All of Phantom Menace except for about one minute was shot on 35mm negative. It was the subsequent films that were shot on the Sony F900 and F950 HD, respectively, and uprezzed to 2K.

One sequence from Phantom Menace that was shot digitally was a brief scene on the balcony, just a conversation between two people on a balcony, but it does stand out a little bit.

BTW, the same camera model was used for Avatar, and yet won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. Go figure.

 

Like I first saw them....IV, VI, V, I, II, III !

 

May the FARCE be with you...

 

You saw 6 before 5?

Harry

 

Yes. It was confusing at the time!

 

Why does PM look SO bad? I mean, it's gotta be the worst looking movie in term of picture quality I've ever seen.

 

I asked myself the same question about a year ago (my kids are 6 and 8). I would probably show them in the theatrical release order.

Truth is, the kids will experience them completely different from how we experienced them as kids. There are the Clone Wars series as well that they will probably watch too.

 

Coupled with the fact that it's nearly 2 & 1/2 hours too long.

 

That's a bunch of bunk and a common defense of the three horrible prequels.

That doesn't take into account that original trilogy was universally loved by old and young alike.

It also doesn't take into the fact that I can go to the movie theatre and enjoy (or not enjoy) plenty of similar type movies today on their own merit. I loved the first two Spiderman movies but did not care for the third. Has nothing to do with my age/maturity or how jaded I am.

The fact is, it's pretty much universally acknowledged the the Star Wars prequel movies were atrocities and if you don't feel that way, well, you're in a tiny minority.

 

Appalling.

 

I don't agree. Watch it again when it comes out on Blu-ray.

 

Categorizing it as a kids movie is not correct, though (not that you did).

Prequel reviews I read were not that favorable... and the ones that were seemed to be relectantly positive as if they felt they had to be.

I remember walking out of "The Phantom Menace", a movie I took a day off work to see along with a group of people... a movie I anticipated more than any other in my lifetime.... and I was the only one willing to say "wow, that sucked" as soon as we exited the theater.

Although everybody eventually admitted they felt that way, nobody really wanted to admit right then and there that the movie was terrible.

 

I can't find myself watching any of the prequels today. Too much of it is cringe-inducing.

 

Anybody see the 2008 indie film Fanboys? This was the one about a group of nutty Star Wars fans, one of whom is dying of cancer, so they take a road trip to break into Skywalker Ranch to steal a copy of Phantom Menace, months before the movie was released to theaters. It's a very strange film, but it's got some good moments.

The two worst things about it: 1) George Lucas never appears live in it (just a muffled voice on the telephone), and 2) the fans never just come out and say, "jesus, that movie really sucked!"

But to Lucas' credit, he allowed the film to be made and released. Carrie Fisher has a very funny cameo in it, but you gotta watch for it. I don't think it made any money, but it's an unusual, interesting film at obsessed Star Wars fans. The upcoming documentary The People vs. George Lucas should be even more interesting.

 

I found Fanboys to be entertaining enough, but it was incredibly frustrating to me because I could see the way it was stitched together. For those who may not have heard, the film was originally shot and completed for the Weinstein Company in 2007. Allegedly, the Weinsteins saw potential to pitch the film to the demographic that made Superbad a hit that summer, so new scenes were written and filmed by a different director (best known for a couple of Adam Sandler films) that changed the tone of the film and eliminated the "dying of cancer" material. A lot of online controversy came up about this, but in the end, the Weinsteins allowed the cancer plot to return and for the original director to complete a version of the film. However, that final cut is a mishmash of the original film and the re-shoots. I would love to see a copy of the original film, which strikes me a something that would be in line with a late-90s low-budget indie like Dazed and Confused - some of that tone is still in the finished film. But the final cut has some ridiculous material that I felt turned the characters crass and tasteless at times. I can't say for sure that it's all from the re-shoots, but my gut says so.

 

My son (14) and I (38) saw the originals first, then the remastered (is that the word?) then we went to see the new 1,2,3 in the cinema... we both agree you have to see 4,5,6 (the original 1,2,3) first and last. So watch the old movies first, then watch them again, but re-fixed.., then see the new movies, then see the old movies again )

 

That line probably should've been the title of that movie:

Star Wars, Episode I: I've Got A Bad Feeling About This

 

Yeah, I detected some really weird edits and lapses in the final film of Fanboys, but I didn't know that had happened. I knew that it had sat on the shelf for a couple of years before release, but I figured that was just the usual vague indie "looking for a distributor" problem. Strange film.

I'm still baffled as to why George Lucas wouldn't do a walk-on. To me, you're better off embracing this kind of thing than ignoring it. (BTW, the real Skywalker Ranch doesn't look like the way it does in this film, at least not what I saw of it.)

 

My daughter is two years old and is already showing interest in some films. She watched "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" with me the other night, and she sat was sucked in from the very beginning. She really liked Dracula and "that Wolf Man". She thought Dracula's "giving them the big eyes" was hysterical.

I can hardly wait to show her "Creature From the Black Lagoon"!

As far as the Star Wars films, I'll show her Episode IV and Empire to see if she has any interest in the rest. I really don't like Jedi very much. Those stupid furry muppet things are too much for me to handle. WTF was he thinking?

 

Marketing teddy bears...

Harry

 

Admittedly I haven't seen the prequel films in a while, but as Mr. Plinkett likes to point out, they have a very sterile feel to them, due in large part to the fact that very little is actually *real*.

 

Show them the most recent 3 strictly for laughs. In the climatic(?) scene between Obi-wan and Annikin (sp) my kids were laughing at the dialogue

 

I can defend Lucas on a lot of points, but the Ewoks are a tough one.

The only thing worse to me was the semi-disco music in the final scene of the original Jedi. Man, it's really bizarre now once they replaced the "Zub-Zub" song with that New-Agey mandolin melody in the revised version -- especially with Billy Dee Williams clapping his hand and rockin' out. Weird-city.