Cutting just The Phantom Menace

Qui Gon was supposed to introduce the Whills to Yoda and Obi Wan in Revenge of the Sith.  To Teach them how they can retain their physical form as well as their indenitity in the force,  While Qui Gon was just a dissembodied ghost.

I mean it probably was another Lucas idea that got left aside to explain why ben kenobi dissapears in a new hope, and why when qui gon is burned on the pyre in episode one or when he is struck down by maul he remains.  But in Return of the Jedi Vaders suit remains on the pyre but his soul and body are gone.

Lucas basically wanted to retell the "Fall of the Roman Empire" in outer space.  How a democracy becomes an Empire.  While also making reference to hitler and nazi germany.  Hitler was chancellor and given emergency powers, before he assumed ultimate control of the country as dictator.

He also blended the themes of Sophocles Oedipus, The story of faust, and milton's paradise lost.

Also drawing parrelells to modern world events and politics.  I believe there is an applicability there rather than an allegory of the times of george bush JR.

James teh OG said:

And despite the awfulness of "Attack of the Clones" or "Revenge of the Sith", it's the only one of the prequels that got a fan re-edit. 

You are very poorly misinformed. All three films have received more fanedits than I could even count.

You and I think very differently on this matter. I for one, absolutely cannot stand AOTC or ROTS. To me they define the words "awful" and "worthless". Yet, I like The Phantom Menace. It feels the most Star Wars-esque to me. Even though I was disappointed with TPM, it left me with hopes for a truly great sequel, and what I got was something unbearable. Perhaps the Phantom Menace did have some of the most offending parts of the trilogy, but it also had some of the greatest. Darth Maul was a pretty cool villian, though horribly underused, and Qui-gon made a fantastic Jedi Master. II and III had really worthless villians, and even more worthless Jedi. At least TPM got that bit right. The space battle, while quite lackluster was, unfortunately, ten times the battle we'd see in any other SW prequel (George got the bright idea to turn battle scenes into toy advertisements, and that kind of closed the deal on making any dogfights that were actually enjoyable to watch).

Duel of the Fates lightsaber fight, say what you will about it seeming very choreographed, certainly it was, but it was also a lot of fun to watch, something I could not honestly say about any other prequel lightsaber duel.

Even for a ground battle, the completely CG Gungan/Battle Droid fight was way ahead of the chaotic video game cutscene that was the battle on the Wookie homeworld, or the unmentionably painful to watch Geonosis Area Battle (love that the Clone Wars were kicked off in a sporting area! Be kind of like WWII having its first battle in Yankee Stadium. Would be brilliant for a comedy! Which I am pretty sure George thought he was writing with the whole ending to AOTC, what with all the humor that ensues once they enter the droid factory, especially with Threepio's head swap, the goofy looking monsters, and Hayden and Natelie's preformance as they are expressing their love to each other right before going to certain death, only for them to turn around and make a huge joke of the whole thing in how easily they escape.

So for me, just thinking of George somehow having lost so much money on TPM, going bankrupt, and never having made the later two prequels makes me feel a whole ot better...

Since you bring it up, the 3PO droid factory thing really bothered me.  I suppose I shouldn't be looking too deeply into this, but it drives me crazy.  Am I really supposed to believe that both his head and body operate with independent power sources?  It's also totally inconsistent.  If both parts can survive in the droid factory, why did he shut down when blasted apart in ESB?  Sure, he lost some limbs, but essentially it was his head dismembered from his torso.  In context, shouldn't seem like a big deal, unless we're to believe that his main power unit is located in his arm.

Just ridiculous.  I should make a video on that...

Gaffer Tape said:

Just ridiculous.  I should make a video on that...

Yeah you should!

And the only good part of ROTS is the Order 66 sequence.

I respectfully disagree. I didn't know any of those characters slain in that montage. We have this abstract idea of what Jedi are supposed to be and what they are supposed to do, but we never go to know any of these characters.  Of course the ascent of evil is a tragedy, but it's not a personal one in the case of ROTS.

The more I think about it, I think ROTS is the worst of the PT films.

My feelings on the matter of which is worse, AOTC or ROTS goes like this. AOTC is by far the worst quality of the three, filled with the worst ideas, and the weakest plot. It is a really, really awful movie. I feel that ROTS stands slightly above it on a quality scale, but it is also the home of some of the most pivitol and important parts of the entire SW saga, and all these things, and I mean absolutely every one of them, was pulled off incredibly poorly. To me, this ultimately makes it worse than AOTC. There was more at stake with it, and the loss was greater. Despite the fact that the Clone Wars are suppose to be a huge historical event in the SW universe, the entire movie was essentially filler (as was TPM). Revenge of the Sith was the main event, it was what the previous two films were building up to, and it fell incredibly flat. Beyond flat, actually, I feel it left quite a crater.

Could be wrong, but when Ash mentioned Order 66 being the only good part of the film, I think he was probably referring to the quality of the montage. It was rather nicely done. If I had actually cared the least bit for any of those retards in heavy makeup, it probably would have been a very powerful moment in the film.

C3PX said:

Gaffer Tape said:

Just ridiculous.  I should make a video on that...

 

Yeah you should!

I was hoping you'd come around, just so I could ask you this question:  if I were to make a video, what content could I include?  I pretty much just summed that up in about 30 seconds.  Could anyone help me expand that idea?

Gaffer Tape said:

C3PX said:

Gaffer Tape said:

Just ridiculous.  I should make a video on that...

 

Yeah you should!

I was hoping you'd come around, just so I could ask you this question:  if I were to make a video, what content could I include?  I pretty much just summed that up in about 30 seconds.  Could anyone help me expand that idea?

 

Well it's my opinion that making a video solely about 3PO's anatomy would be pretty boring. Maybe you could make a longer, more informative video which includes other continuity errors in the Star Wars saga. It'd make the video much more interesting I think.

Just my two cents.

Gaffer, you are the ingenious individual who made an entire video on the insanity of the Jabba Palace rescue plan! I've got to say, you disappoint me! The grand master asking a mere novice... ;)

I certainly don't think an entire video ripping on how dumb the Threepio head swap bit is would be boring... but if you needed to pad it out, maybe you could make a top worst moments of AOTC video.

The coolest thing about your Jabba rescue plan video, was that you took something most people over looked the crappiness of, and pointed it out in a way that made viewer take a second look at it and realize "Whoa, that is pretty f-ed up! How did I ever ignore that before?" It was a fairly unique insight that most of us really were never bothered by, because we were too busy loving the hell out of that movie, or dissing the Ewoks and the fact that the movie ended with Yub Nub.

I think something like that would be hard with this, since the PT has literally been picked to pieces already. So part of me just says stick to an enthusiastic and humorous complaint commentary (like your Jabba video) on Threepio's antics and how it is inconsistant with what we have seen in the OT. Another part of me would like to see you rant on about other parts of episode II as well, but realize you run the risk of seeming exactly like every other youtube reviewer out there (something that, I am happy to say, I feel you have done a great job avoiding so far). Perhaps you could take the approach of examining the inconsistencies of C3PO's character between the PT and OT.    

You are a very creative guy, I have great faith in your ability to make this interesting and completely unique. Also, I wouldn't worry so much about length, the video could be just a few minutes long and still be very enjoyable. No need to feel obligated to go beyond, or even close to, the five minute mark.

Certainly!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlx2ItNLeFM&feature=channel_page

Heh, glad I could help!