Why does everyone hate Star Wars: Episode I?

[bigvic]

I have been reading comments from this site and hundreds of others and I have heard some of the most obnoxious comments on Star Wars Episode I.
"I hate Jar Jar"
"It didn't live up to the expectations!"
"It was so lame!"

I want to hear why so many people hate this particular saga and this particular chapter more specifically.

I didn't hate it. I thought it was good...much like the other chapters, granted some of better than others (Star Wars ESB is the best in my opinion).

When most people look at Star Wars, they don't think of one movie. They think of a completed story. When you think "Star Wars," does the Yoda come to your mind? What about the Emperor? Do you think of Lando Calrissian? What about Luke using his Lightsaber in a fight? If these things come to your mind when the words "star wars" are mentioned (be honest and don't lie) then you are thinkin about a completed story. You ARE NOT thinking about one movie! Since Episode I came out, people have been comparing it to the other movies....againt...the other MOVIES...not just chapter 4 (Star Wars: A New Hope). If you are doing this YOU ARE BEING UNFAIR TO EPISODE I! YOU ARE COMPARING ONE MOVIE, THE BEGINNING OF ANOTHER TRILOGY, TO AN ALREADY EXISTING TRILOGY...WHICH IS JUST STUPID!

Another note. Some of you probaly don't remember, but when Lucas tried to release chapter 4, Star Wars A New Hope, it wasn't appreciated by many of the executives from Fox. They hated it for the most part and they only released it in a small amount of theaters. They, in their limited sight, felt the movie was awful and wouldn't even earn what it cost to make. They thought it was crap....much like every idiot that says stupid stuff about Episode I. So, those who have judge Episode I without waiting till the other two chapters are finished are the equalivant of those studio execs that felt Star Wars was a useless and profitless movie.
But another question arises, what the hell was everyone expecting when they went to see Episode I? chapter 4 as a stand alone is one of the cheesiest, weakest acted pieces of crap in film history, but once we see chapter 5, Empire Strikes Back, it makes chapter 4 look better because it was only an introductory chapter of characters for the events to come.

Now the Jar Jar thing, I can't debate that. He is annoying, but so was C3PO and R2D2 in all the other chapters, so I just look at him as comic relief and move on!

[dh1989]

This does not belong in this forum. Episode 1 is not an upcoming movie. You should move it or wait for a forum moderator to do it for you.

[ak]

Oops.

[This message has been edited by ak (edited 03-29-2002).]

[Scorchlord]

Episode I sucks.

Jar jar sucks. His character is annoying, incomprehensible, death-deserving.

Anakin sucks. HE's a whiny little slave bitch who should have been butchered for Tatooine soylent green.

Padme sucks, because she can't act. She talks like a wooden-line wonder. And she ain't all that hot too boot.

The special effects were overblown and irritating.

The pacing was awful. Long spurts of boredom paced by not-that-interesting action sequences.

No sense of evil. There's no prevalent enmity like Darth Vader - and ol' Georgie kills the best part of the movie in Darth Maul off at the end.

A dull story line. Oooo, a blockade and senate dealings! Really interesting for a movie called Star Wars.

Did I mention bad acting, dialogue, and plot points?

[LordKaruku]

To try to answer bigvic's question slightly more objectively...

While it is true that "Star Wars" is collectively one large story, it is also true that the second half of this story -- the classic "Star Wars trilogy" -- existed as it's own unit for over 15 years before The Phantom Menace was released. A whole generation of fans grew up with these three movies, loving and embracing the universe created within. To create a new story in that world 15 years later, which meshes with the original three in terms of style, quality, feel, etc., is an extremely difficult proposition.

Lucas is a different man now than he was when he directed "Star Wars" 25 years ago. He has kids now. Instead of being a young hot-shot, he's a middle aged executive. His sensibilities have changed and, whether he likes it or not, his view of the Star Wars universe has changed. I believe what many fans responded to negatively in The Phantom Menace was a core difference in the Star Wars universe. It feels different now than it used to. The massive use of CGI is part of this. The more kid-oriented parts of the script are part of this (there were never fart jokes in the original trilogy). The inclusion of cameos and in-jokes (Jabba, the jawas during the pod race, the E.T.s on Coruscant). "The Force" being detectable by a blood test. All of these minor elements gave many fans a sense that something wasn't right, which I think has opened their eyes to the film's problems.

The Star Wars series has also never relied on other installments to correct weaknesses in an individual film, so I think it is a mistake to attribute any of Episode One's failings to this fact. In "A New Hope," Vader functions perfectly well as a simple villain for the self-contained story of the movie, without us needing to know his backstory, or what his true identity is. In further films, the additional information enriches his character, and makes us look at the earlier film differently -- but the original film stands on it's own. Note that "Star Wars: A New Hope" was nominated for 11 Oscars in major categories, while TPM only received 3 technical nominations and no wins -- and as this happened before the public even knew it was part of a series, I think this shows that most people did not consider it to be "one of the cheesiest, weakest acted pieces of crap in film history" as a stand-alone film.

The Phantom Menace, as a stand-alone film, has many problems. The script has fundamental flaws from a story-telling perspective. Whether or not future films will reveal that Annakin's accidental destruction of the orbiting station was "the will of the force", it makes for an emotionally unsatisfying ending to have the film's main battle won purely by chance (ditto with the ground battle, which Jar Jar wins purely by chance, and Qui-Gon's death, which seems to happen for no good reason other than he was momentarily distracted). The original films may have had questionable dialogue, but they were built around dramatically sound structures. The cast in the original films were allowed more of a chance to banter and create memorable performances together, in contrast to TPM's cast, whom were stranded alone on blue-screen stages for months, some never even meeting each other. Lucas's quick shooting style -- basically moving on to the next scene unless a technical problem arose -- led to uninspired line readings and simple lighting. Compare to Irvin Kirshner's direction of Luke and Vader's saber battle in sillouhette.

This has gone on kind of long, but my point is -- I think there are legitimate reasons to dislike the Phantom Menace, bigvic, and these are some of them.

[This message has been edited by LordKaruku (edited 03-30-2002).]

[Common Sense Man]

The real question should be why is this topic in upcoming movies?

Out.................

[Moviebuff_Mike]

Being such a huge Star Wars fan, I was not dissapointed by Episode I. After seeing it in the theaters way back in 1999, I thought it was great! I was expecting to watch a movie that would entertain me, and it did. I went back to the theaters 3 times after the first to see it again and again. Although many fans have been dissapointed with Episode I, Im very sure that they will like Episode II more than they think they will. The story is much better, there's lot's of action,suspense and less JarJar.

[Dumb-Fokker-**]

Well, since this hasn`t been moved yet, i`ll just go ahead and reply. Why don`t I like The Phantom Menace, let me count the ways. Hmmm, could it be the complete lack of an emotional connection that we are offered with any, and all of the characters?? Maybe if I were a stone I could empathise with them, but as I am not, I just couldn`t do it. The characters are dull, lifeless, and uninteresting. The actors behind the characters, which are for the most part good actors, bring nothing to their characters, and recite their lines in a such a monotone "lets do this so I can get the fuck away from this green screen" quality that its hard to even care or pay attention to what they are saying. Next we`ll move on to the kiddy, childish humour that wasnt humourous at all. The main offender here being Jar-Jar Binks - a character so unlikeable and annoying that he has several fanbases dedicated to killing him. Not to mention millions of solo efforts that wouldnt mind the chance as well. The "big fish eat bigger fish", the Gungans in general, Jake Lloyd ("Yipeeeeee"); need I go on?? And than there is the overused, cartoon, flat dull and lifeless CGI that is constant throughout the film. I wont say anymore on that, as you all know what im talking about. As Karaku pointed out, the pacing is very bad. There are long stretches of nothing, which have boring, and overly-long themselves, action pieces. Was the pod-race really that exciting?? No. And the sad thing is that the pod-race was the closest thing to the OT that was in TPM. Darth Maul kicked ass, but was in it for about 5 minutes. I dont really feel like going on, although I could. And lets remember that you cant use the excuse that SW is a trilogy, because each film is a seperate entity. The stories are usually years apart making it more sequal than an actual trilogy. Its not just one story, its three, and each story should be treated as such. TPMs wasnt, and that lead to a boring film.

[The Other]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Common Sense Man:
The real question should be why is this topic in upcoming movies?</font>

LOL. That's exactly what I was thinking the first time I saw it. And it's still here.

[Americana]

Where the hell is all the Moderators?? Get this thing the hell outta here Please!!

[Mike Sampson]

Sorry. I was asleep at the switch again. Transferring to General Movie talk...

-MS