What was the worst scene in....................................The Phantom Menace?

He shoots it's leg off by accident and it falls over.

I assume if goes into battle with it's shields down which makes a lot of sense.

He also releases the balls by accident (knocking out many tanks and droids) and makes a hover tank veer and fire on other tanks before crashing by accident.

Seeing as Anakin destroys the droid command ship by accident too there seems to be a whole lot of happy accidents going on during that conflict, like having all the droids get their power and commands from a single source.

Presumably this is why ROTJ is the very last ever episode of the saga because George thinks Palpatine is the only thing the holding the Empire together too.

Loads of happy accidents resulting in defeating the bad guys,... makes it a bit like a Pink Panther movie.

J

George thinks Palpatine is the only thing the holding the Empire together too.

 Well if ignore the expanded universe, he is.

And the worst scene in TPM is the scene is Tatooine. So much little happens, aside from them picking Anakin.

A fleet of over two thousand starships, a limitless supply of troops and characters like Tarkin would love to debate this with you.

The Emperor equating with the Empire was another Lucas ROTJ introduced short cut to an ending element.

Almost any scene in Coruscant is snore inducing too.

Ian is always good for a laugh but everyone else seems to be waiting for their paycheck.

The dinner table scene with everyone in the Skywalker's home always struck me as a microcosm of so many of the dubious elements in the films. Bad comedy with Jar Jar, numerous reminders of the idiot plot (apparently Qui-gon and company can't trade with anyone else for a smaller ship?), horrendous dialogue, and the acting, oh lord the acting. Lloyd is cringe inducing, Jar-Jar is in full shucking and jiving mode, Portman & Neeson feel like they're practically asleep, and Pernilla August seems as if belongs in a whole other movie. 

Its basically at this scene that I sunk in my theater seat and realized that I didn't care about any of these characters. There was nothing engaging about them, and that his was likely the best it was getting.

CWBorne said:

The dinner table scene with everyone in the Skywalker's home always struck me as a microcosm of so many of the dubious elements in the films. Bad comedy with Jar Jar, numerous reminders of the idiot plot (apparently Qui-gon and company can't trade with anyone else for a smaller ship?), horrendous dialogue, and the acting, oh lord the acting. Lloyd is cringe inducing, Jar-Jar is in full shucking and jiving mode, Portman & Neeson feel like they're practically asleep, and Pernilla August seems as if belongs in a whole other movie. 

Its basically at this scene that I sunk in my theater seat and realized that I didn't care about any of these characters. There was nothing engaging about them, and that his was likely the best it was getting.

Ironically, Lucas commented on that scene that he felt like it was a potentially boring drag to the more actioney pace of the film, but had to be there to provid some exposition etc.

Now, everyone will say "what, Lucas doesn't want dialogue, just 'splosions, well figures!!"
It really turned out to be a problem, but only because it sucked so much :D

SilverWook said:

theprequelsrule, there are better ways to make a point without using profanity and other offensive terms. Keep it clean?

twooffour said:

CWBorne said:

The dinner table scene with everyone in the Skywalker's home always struck me as a microcosm of so many of the dubious elements in the films. Bad comedy with Jar Jar, numerous reminders of the idiot plot (apparently Qui-gon and company can't trade with anyone else for a smaller ship?), horrendous dialogue, and the acting, oh lord the acting. Lloyd is cringe inducing, Jar-Jar is in full shucking and jiving mode, Portman & Neeson feel like they're practically asleep, and Pernilla August seems as if belongs in a whole other movie. 

Its basically at this scene that I sunk in my theater seat and realized that I didn't care about any of these characters. There was nothing engaging about them, and that his was likely the best it was getting.

Ironically, Lucas commented on that scene that he felt like it was a potentially boring drag to the more actioney pace of the film, but had to be there to provid some exposition etc.

Now, everyone will say "what, Lucas doesn't want dialogue, just 'splosions, well figures!!"
It really turned out to be a problem, but only because it sucked so much :D

Well the thing thing is, you can have slower scenes, provided something interesting is going on and the characters seem like they, you know, give a damn. 

Look at the scene with Owen, Beru, and Luke in ANH. The former two are able to tell so much with facial expression alone, and you can clearly tell that something larger is going on than just what's being said. Also, in a remarkable twist, Owen and Luke are clearly shown as getting upset, as if they're passionate about something. Remarkable, isn't it? 

I typically hate reworking scenes from the films, because so much is just bad that trying to fix them seems fruitless, but I'll give it a shot here. What if there was an obvious undertone/subtext of Shmi being very nervous about taking in these mysterious strangers in her house, and some subtle signs that Qui-Gonn senses that she might just alert some authorities and isn't sure if he can trust her or her son? You have Padme trying to engage in some talk with Shmi (the latter only giving her a look when she brings up the Republic's anti-slavery laws), but the whole scene is rife with tension because no one's sure who will do what.

Thus when Anakin does speak up about getting them the part (and it would be the first time he does in this scene having just observed beforehand) it takes everybody a bit back and is a demonstration of the boy's innocence and kindness that in spite of the obvious difficult atmosphere, his first instinct is to help. Do that and have Jar Jar keep his mouth shut the whole time, and just maybe this bit would seem a bit more lively. 

Sounds very awesome, as a possibility.

Personally, what got on my nerves the most was the whole cheesy... SWEETNESS of it all.
Ani is like the perfect kid with a cute face who wants to help everyone, Shmi is like the perfect caring mother who doesn't want him to get in danger, but then after one line of dialogue she changes her mind and says "he was destined to help you" (probably the worst line delivery in the scene - after "blow you up, BOOM!"), Ani is all excited about going into the car chase but then his mommy forbids it and he's like "but, Mom... I like it so very much"...

...

just horrendous.

Dial down that childish bullshit, and it would already be bearable.

Qui-Gon is the only funny thing in the Jar Jar gags.

one word MIDICHLORIANS!

There's so much to choose, but if I had to pick one as the worst it would be the underwater city scene. It looks fake, it has the "you're in big doodoo" line, the fat frog drooling, the Jedi being incredibly boring, it's so badly shot it's not even clear that Qui-Gon is using a mind trick, etc...

Diego said:

it's so badly shot it's not even clear that Qui-Gon is using a mind trick, etc...

I have no love for the Gungan city scenes but I'd call the mind trick subtle rather than poorly shot.

^Yes!  That is brutal.

walking_carpet said:

+1

finding the worse scene in TPM is like debating the worse player on the Bears offensive line.  But this is a microcosm.

+10

There was a lot of suckage in TPM: Anakin is a cutesy 10 year old.  Slavery is bad.  Yippee!  That's gotta hurt no matter what planet you come from.  Boss Nass.  Anakin destroys the command center by accident.

It's really hard for me to pinpoint the one singular moment of the movie that is the worst.  What sticks out the worst in my mind is the two headed announcer during the pod race.  The need to inject really bad comic relief moments every few minutes just wears you down after a while.

I ignore the prequels, more or less.  I much prefer the version of the prequels that was built up in my mind when Obi Wan speaks of the Old Republic, the Jedi and how Anakin was a great friend and great pilot.

I've seen the fan edits of TPM and AOTC, and while they greatly improve the pacing and the dramatic tension, they are still not nearly as good as the original trilogy.

Perhaps those web articles were right: it was George's ex-wife who edited the original Star Wars into the space opera grand masterpiece that it was.  Empire Strikes Back is superior in many ways to it's predecessor, and George Lucas delegated the script and the direction to other talented individuals.  While ROTJ was still a very good film, one can recognize many of the bad elements of the prequels starting to creep in here.  A foreboding of things to come.