The Monkey Buddha:
"Star Wars"
"Star Wars"
The original "Star Wars: A New Hope" was released the year I was born & it has been one of my greatest creative & philosophical inspirations. After growing up w/ the original trilogy, I was totally psyched to see how the whole mysterious Clone Wars backstory unfolded when "Episode I: The Phantom Menace" was released during my college days.
Even though there were plenty of things I thought could have been done better or even eliminated, it was cool just to see a new installment of the saga. Thankfully, the next 2 prequels got better in my opinion & George Lucas's overall vision expressed though the movies is still amazing.
Unfortunately, the inability for George Lucas to be challenged during the 3 prequels on any number of issues regarding story, characters, & especially dialogue has left some glaring failures in his creations. These include:
• Ridiculous, horrendous, sappy dialogue between Anakin & Padme throughout the prequels
• Jar-Jar Binks
• Plot holes that you could fly a Star destroyer through
• Sterile acting & unsatisfying story arcs
• ...and the worst goddamn utterance in any movie, ever, in a scene which was otherwise part of the coolest sequence of the entire saga.
Of course I'm talking about Darth Vader's unbelievably stupid f*cking "NOOOOOOOOOO!" when he finds out his wife Padme is dead at the end of Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith (whose title I predicted years before the movie came out BTW):
I vividly remember wincing in the theater when that happened it was so awful.
So anyway, people have endlessly criticized Lucas's execution of the prequels since Episode I hit the theater. I personally still love all the movies despite their flaws & think the saga is our modern-day Illiad, an epic story for the ages. Perhaps I've been blinded by the Dark Side.
A critical mastermind in the realm of Youtube disagrees & put together a 70 minute scathing review of Episode 1: A Phantom Menace. Despite my love of Star Wars, this critique is so spot-on brutally funny that I now have to suspend my disbelief to an even greater degree when I watch Episode I again. The narrator gets super-creepy at times, but the whole thing is hilarious. The most damning bits are the actual behind-the-scenes looks at Lucas's questionable production & storytelling methods.
If you are a Star Wars fan, this is a must-see video that is broken up into segments for convenient viewing. I'll embed the first segment, but it gets better as the review goes on. Watch 'em ALL!
"Video Review of
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace"
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace"
Fortunately, (or unfortunately if you are George Lucas) the creators of the first review have also decided to skewer Episode 2: Attack of the Clones:
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