The full post is here. I'm going to respond to select parts here in order to keep the wall of text down to a reasonable size.
In the wake of the film’s release, “George Lucas raped my childhood” became the rallying cry of overzealous, melodramatic fanboys and manboys of questionable wit.
It's true that this line was uttered countless times after TPM, but from my experience, the the spirit in which those utterances were made breaks down like this:
5% - completely genuinely by idiots
25% - tongue in cheek/sarcastically by people exaggerating to make a point
70% - quoting the above 30% in the process of taking it seriously...which no rational person should ever do.
Basically, whenever you see the phrase "Lucas raped my childhood", it's a ginormous red flag which means "Don't take me seriously". And yet, Ali Arikan is using it in the second paragraph of a long, vigorous defense of the TPM. I have long felt that PT/Lucas defenders lack a sense of irony, and here's another example.
Twelve films, [Lucas] said, had been his original intention. By the time the twelve had inexplicably became nine, Lucas had perfected the spiel, the variations on which still form the backbone of everything Star Wars: that he had started with the middle trilogy since it was the one with the most amount of commercial appeal, and that the original story he had meticulously conceived of had been grander and far more intricate. This brief history of Star Wars time which I have just recounted, and which everyone and which everyone knows by heart, is actually horseshit. There exists absolutely no proof to suggest that particular course of events in the films’ development cycle – in fact, that account of the prequels’ conception is now so commonplace that no one dares question it. This revisionism is of the essence to all Star Wars films. And it must be clarified further before delving deeper into The Phantom Menace.
I do appreciate Arikan's admission here that Lucas has been dishonest about his plans for Star Wars. I do think it's funny that he says "no one dare question" Lucas' revisionism; I guess he's spent a lot of time at TF.N - over there, it's almost literally true that no one dare question GL.
Before I get back to The Phantom Menace more specifically, I’d like to address the effects of nostalgia on the entire series. Well, one effect, really: it’s made everyone think the original trilogy was fucking great until the Ewoks showed up. Horses for courses, and I am a huge fan of the series (or why would I bother with this interminable diatribe in the first place), but all three original films leave a lot, LOT to be desired. They all have scenes that seem to go on forever: the trench-run in the first film, the Endor chase and the subsequent battle in Jedi, and, yes, the entire Dagobah sequence in Empire, fully devoid of verve, with its plodding pseudo-mysticism. There are many more shortcomings to all three films, and this is not the place to get into them. The fact remains, however, they are still, even with all their flaws, great films. It’s just that their apotheosis through nostalgia has resulted in an overestimation of their quality, which, in turn, has had an adverse effect on The Phantom Menace.
My personal favorite, the equivalency fallacy: "The OT had (pick one) bad acting/silly kid moments/plot holes/pacing problems/bad dialogue too, you know!"
It's a heroic attempt, and Arikan writes skillfully (for now). Arikan's first step is to frame the debate by demonstrating Lucas' revisionism, thus avoiding the "Lucas does no wrong" worldview so many PT gushers have. Good start. Next, Arikan tries to cash in that credibility by saying the OT is good but overrated from the nostalgia effect.
First of all, he's doing an awful lot of generalizing here:
everyone th[ought] the original trilogy was fucking great until the Ewoks showed up.
"Everyone"? This is what you're clinging to? My anecdotal evidence quite contradicts this. I know of fans who don't like Jedi as a whole. I know of fans who don't like any SW except for the original. I know of fans who prefer the PT to the OT. Now, my anecdotal evidence is shit - but I could at least furnish some proof of this from various SW forums. But Arikan just puts "everyone" out there and I'm supposed to just let that go by. Problem is, it's one of the legs of his argument - and it's quite unconvincing.
Second of all, if he's going to critique suspect moments in the OT, he really ought to use more convincing examples than these:
They all have scenes that seem to go on forever: the trench-run in the first film
Oh - the very scene the movie has spent two hours building toward. This is an interminable scene. Right. So what was the high point of Star Wars for you? Threepio's oil bath?
the Endor chase and the subsequent battle in Jedi
I assume you mean the "speeder bike" chase and the "space" battle. (There were several battles and chases going on in Jedi - be specific) I'll admit that the space battle wasn't as good as the one in Star Wars, and the speeder bike sequences are just okay.
and, yes, the entire Dagobah sequence in Empire, fully devoid of verve, with its plodding pseudo-mysticism.
I'll admit that there's a little too much screen time used on Luke's training, but the substance is undeniable. Obviously you're not a fan of the Force as protrayed in the OT.
The interminable moments you cite, apparently the first ones that come to your mind - when you could have cited "many more shortcomings to [sic] all three films" - are certainly interesting. Your choices come off as contrarian to me, but you're not going there, right?
Yes, I fucking love it. And most of the reasons why are exactly those that make people hate the film. Considered on its own terms, as a summer blockbuster sequel, it’s just about perfect. I love that there is absolutely NOTHING dark about the film whatsoever. Anakin leaves his mother behind, probably never to see her again, and yet two scenes later, he is all “bitch, I know how to fly a spaceship – I own lightspeed, and wacky maneuvering, and shit.” Jar Jar steps on crap twice, gets farted on twice, gets his mouth zapped only for his tongue to dangle like a flaccid phallus for five minutes afterwards, and manages to singlehandedly bring down an entire squadron of battle hardened droids by jumping on one’s chest.
Oh. I see. (Emphases mine)
the Chancellor has secretly dispatched two Jedi Knights, Master Qui-Gon and his bitch Obi Wan, to see what the hell is going on. This idea of “Jedi as peacemakers” is inspired.
Yeah. What inspired that particular idea, anyway?
BTW - hilarious use of "bitch". I'm falling head over heels for your argument.
The way the story develops afterwards is radically different from the original three films, which all have one single plotline each that dominates them.
Maybe Arikan watched an edit of ESB that started on Dagobah and never left. The final scene in said edit was the duel in the cave.
We meet Anakin’s mum, Shmi (which, incidentally, is the name of my cat),
In an astonishing coincidence, I don't care.
[Anakin] might be The Chosen One, which, again, is an original concept for Star Wars, though it’s talked about so much that a lot of people now assume that it used to govern the original films, too, in which a saviour storyline could be described as subtextual at best.
1) This is a clumsy run-on sentence.
2) "That boy is our last hope" doesn't strike me as subtextual.
“Overthrowing the Empire” does not domineer the characters’ particular “plights of fancy” in the original films, where the actions are governed by momentary twists of fate.
1) Was "plights of fancy" an attempt at punnery? Because the phrase is "flights of fantasy".
2) The word you want is "dominate". "Domineer" is a synonym for "bully".
3) Leia is a Rebel. Luke becomes a Rebel. Obi-Wan is, at the very least, sympathetic to the Rebellion. Han saves the day for the Rebellion after changing heart. In the start of the second movie, all the surviving characters are at A. Motherfucking. Rebel. Base. In the third movie, all of the surviving characters risk their lives for the Rebellion. But according to you, the OT is nothing more than sci-fi stream of consciousness.
In the new films, however, whether or not Anakin’s The Chosen One dangles over everyone’s heads like the Sword of Domocles. It gets tired soon in the second and third films, but, in The Phantom Menace, it has a kind of obscure mysticism that resembles Empire and Jedi.
1) It's Damocles.
2) I thought Empire was pseudo-mystic?
In fact, midichlorians serve as a metatextual wink at the Star Wars movies, an amalgamation of science fiction and fantasy themselves.
They still suck.
On the other hand, the Nubian Party (Nubian is the official adjectival form of Naboo – I like a film with the audacity to impose its own grammar on the English language) realise that they will have to take up arms against their oppressors, but not before making their peace with Jar Jar’s people.
1) Did Webster's Dictionary have an established adjectival form of Naboo before TPM came out? Does it now?
2) The "Nubian Party" did? Sure it wasn't just Amidala acting alone?
And even though the Coruscant sequence is the weakest one in the film, but it’s not unnecessary. Even at their most plodding, all the scenes in The Phantom Menace serve a purpose, and this is in no small part due to Lucas’s editorial talents as well as the film’s editor Ben Burtt’s.
No commentary necessary here, methinks.
As silly as it might be, the Gungan battle with the battle droids have a pleasant, sugary quaintness which, at its best, is reminiscent of the Agincourt Battle in Olivier’s Henry V. However, this sequence is a refrain of a darker motif introduced in Return of the Jedi with the Ewoks: primitive natives against a technologically advanced invading force. It was a Vietnam metaphor in Jedi, and watching TPM now, the Gungan battle has an ominous allusion to real-life.
1) Gungan battle - Henry V.
Gungan battle - Henry V.
Gungan battle - Henry V.
2) Everyone gets the Ewoks/Vietnamese connection. What is the ominous allusion in the Gungan battle? Seriously, is this analysis going to actually explain anything?
The original post is twice as long and twenty times stupider. Here's a PS - the author responding to someone in the comments section:
(incidentally, Jar Jar is also great in Clones – you know your actors aren’t doing their jobs properly when they start getting upstaged by digital data).
Emphasis mine.
