You think that doing a silly ass nostalgia blog over stuff that I enjoyed and heard of and all during my childhood most people would have thought Star Wars would be a super high thing on the List of Things I Would Talk About as that something related to it would have popped up earlier in this blog, well here's a really big surprise: I was not a big Star Wars fan as a child. I was born in 1985 and no one except my Uncle really saw Star Wars in the theatre and my parents didn't care enough to see it and I don't think they have today therefore there was no one to really introduce me to it. The movies I watched would be like stuff like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Care Bears Movie, Ghostbusters, Short Circuit, Airplane, Naked Gun, Hot Shots, Homeward Bound, Adventures in Babysitting, Don Bluth movies, Jurassic Park, Tiny Toon Adventures How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Charlotte's Web, Disney films, and once I was allowed every horror series I could. I do remember seeing the movies once as a child I think around the time the new releases versions came out. Hell those COULD have been the versions I saw. I just know that I watched Mel Brooks' parody film Spaceballs five thousand times as a child. Star Wars wasn't high on my radar.
So in 1999 this was a big thing, but it wasn't for me. Disney's One Saturday Morning! Big Thing! Pokemon! Big Thing! Getting to rent soul touching masterpieces of cinema like Revenge of the Nerds, Porky's, Pieces and any and all movies I could find from like the late 1970s to the early 1990s! HUGE Thing! It didn't matter as long as it looked cool. I can't tell you how big of a thing this was for us in the 8th grade because three whole children would talk to me at that point and the rest thought I was a damn weirdo. I don't remember many children talking about it honestly. I just remember my teacher showing us the Rocky movies which was pretty awesome. I just never got to Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace until just a half an hour ago.
So I knew about this movies uh let's say less than stellar performance, but I've stuck up for many movies that have a lot of people not loving them. Hudson Hawk, National Lampoon's European Vacation and Nothing But Trouble to name three. I just wanted to italicize some more things. I want to make this review the one with the most italics in a blog post! In fact when a movie gets enough people yelling and screaming about them it makes me want to check it out because I want to make my own opinion on something. I don't take the mainstream opinion on something if I believe it to be true. I make up my own mind on something. It just that this time I do agree with the majority of the people it seems Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace sucks so much ass. If I had forced my parents to rent this or go to the theatre or whatever I would have been pretty fucking upset and angry that I had wasted a rental on a movie that could have gone to something better like Night of the Demons or The Man With Two Brains or Invasion U.S.A.
I'm gonna start out by saying that I think George Lucas is a creative guy. The original Star Wars trilogy is honestly as good as memorable and enjoyable as they say. He helped create Indiana Jones which is also cool and good too! I really like Willow. I just believe that he needed someone to help him with these ideas and movies. It really was a TEAM of people who made these movies back in the day and by 1999 it was all just yes men who wouldn't tell ol' George that his ideas were fucking stupid and should be removed from the damn movie. Like you know the big problem known as Jar Jar Binks.
I will say the individuals that went so over the top angry about this character that it made the actor want to kill himself are fucked up weirdos. I legit hate the fact that I have to bring this up and can't just go into the discussion, but I just cannot with this character. The weird dialogue for his species. The jumping and screaming and yelping he does for comedic effect. The really bad poop jokes. I laugh at fucking poop jokes and the ones in this movie just pop out of fucking nowhere and I hate them. The fact he feels like some kind of weird stereotype that just makes me feel uncomfortable. This also goes for the weird space alien that owns Anikin. Or however you spell that stupid name. They feel like these weird stereotypes that died in 1863 or whenever.
The other problem is all the weird boring shitty talk about fucking Star Wars world politics. I'm sorry but that does not work in Star Wars. You want a fun sci fi space adventure. All the politic talk just bogs this movie down so much. It's not something I want to see in this. More of the pod racing stuff (which was like one of the two scenes in this movie I liked) I also think I just don't give a shit about prequels. I just can't get into caring if Anikin or R2D2 get them selves into a scary situation because I know they survive because I already saw the damn movies that take place later on. Also some of the characters like C3PO and R2D2 just feel so forced because it's like YOU GOTTA SEE THEM!!! I dunno.
The biggest problem is that I just found this movie to be dull as dishwater. I thought the podracing scene was neat and the pod racers were cool. I liked watching the two Jedi dudes fight Darth Maul but honestly everything else was boring as fuck.
FINAL VERDICT: It took me 24 years to finally watch this movie and I get the feeling it will take me another 24 years to see the next two. Or maybe I'll just get them over with. Who knows? Maybe I'll review them. All I know is that it's really weird that I talked about this movie before so many other things I mentioned in this post, but I felt like I had too because well it was one hell of a big thing back in 1999 and portnoyd just had to know my thoughts on it all.
I saw it on day one. I waited overnight for tickets (and I bought 24 of them for multiple people and multiple showings). I actually had a good time with the 2 dozen or so random people waiting there with me.
ReplyDeleteBack then, the hope of it being good hadn't been thoroughly squashed. People were excited. Everyone who saw it loved it because it was legit new Star Wars and the only things before it were the first 3 movies, the Ewok Xmas special and video games. Nothing major. This was major.
Then over time, everyone's opinion of it soured badly. Because it was really bad. Lucas drummed up a really shit tasting way for the Republic to fall into the Empire. The new aliens were garbage (fuck Greg Proops and his stupid announcer voice), especially the trade AZNs. Too many Jedis and too many lame ones. It successfully attacked a lot of things that made the original movies great.
Now go watch 2 and 3. 2 should have been 1 and 2 should have been the actual Clone Wars. Which was the stupidest war ever. No one knew what they were fighting about. No one! It was just a thing to finally capitalize on the off hand comment by GENUINE CLASS in 4.
You are high as fuck if you think I'm watching Episode II or III any time soon...
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