TPM extras and rambling...

[neotoma]

I broke down recently and bought The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones on DVD. It's been interesting, browsing through the extras -- the making-of featurettes, the promo photos, the trailers.

Does anyone else think that the TPM trailer plot would have made for a *much* better movie, what with the implication that the Jedi are going into the haul out a queen and a senator during an invasion?

What about the 'tone poems' tv spots? Am I the only one who thinks 'One Love' reads like a Kramer vs. Kramer with added spaceships? Admittedly, that would probably have been a more interesting story... but seriously, in this spot Shmi and Qui-Gon come across as a still-amiable divorced couple making hard decisions about the future of their son than a woman sending her son off into the unknown with a virtual stranger. What was the designer thinking?

'One Dream' certainly makes me wonder what happened to Anakin's dream that he would come back to Tatooine as a Jedi and liberate the slaves. Did that future die with his mother? Or was it never a precognitive dream in the first place? Given how strong Anakin is in the Force, I kind of doubt that.

'One Destiny' and 'One Truth' are interesting viewed together, as they are respectively a Jedi and a Sith. The Jedi philosophy embodied in the spot is quite different from what we were shown in the movie -- 'it will be a hard life --one without reward, without remorse, without regret' and 'but you will find out who you are' is a lot different from 'attachment is forbidden' and 'every human emotion you have ever experienced leads to the Dark Side'.

I wish we heard more of Sith philosophy over the course of the series, because very few people believe that they are Evil, Totally Evil, and take cackling delight in it (Palpatine by RotJ, is an exception, of course). I love the idea that the Sith *like* fear because they regard it as their ally -- both using it exploit and to corrupt.

'One Will' would be more interesting if more of Padme's interior life had appeared in on screen in the movie. She's brave and kick-ass, but frankly, her costuming sometimes overwhelms her.


It's really easy to see why fans write fic, and even make personal edits (The Phantom Edit, among others)... the film has *so* much potential, and you're left scratching your head over why it's so *dull*.

Comments

[clara-swift.livejournal.com]

::looks around shiftily::

Actually, I love TPM... it's my favourite Star Wars film!

::shuffles off and hides::

[shoiryu.livejournal.com]

I love TPM for its random badness, but I get rageful whenever Anakin is on screen. *L*

[penknife.livejournal.com]

I share your puzzlement over TPM -- there are about twenty minutes of good movie buried in two hours of yawn. And most of the good stuff serves as character development for Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, which is nice, but Qui-Gon is largely irrelevant to the entire rest of the story, and Lucas never does a very good job of articulating what Obi-Wan's experiences in this movie have to do with any of the decisions he makes later. It's such an intriguing mess.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

I think that is a lesson to all aspiring film makers. Don't piss off one of your better actors in the first movie so badly that he won't come back for the third to tie up the dangling plot threads for you.

And there are *several* good movies buried in TPM. They just can't be reconciled with each other, which is why it's such a mess.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Empire is still my favorite of the six. If I had to pick a prequel, it'd be a toss up between TPM and RotS, because TPM has a plot that makes me go 'bwhuh?' but RotS ruins Padme as a character. AotC needs to be edited so that it's mostly Obi-Wan being sneaky, because that's the best of it anyway.

I have to say, there are at least two deleted scenes from TPM that I'm annoyed got cut. Anakin fighting with Greebo made perfect sense, especially with Qui-Gon finding them and giving Anakin the Look of Parental Disapproval. The scene where Anakin says goodbye to Jira is one where I'd keep at least the second half of it, because Qui-Gon destroying the tracking droid is cool, and makes Darth Maul's attack a tiny bit more suspenseful.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Heck, if Ewan MacGregor and Liam Neeson had a hard time selling us Lucas' dialogue, are you going to blame a nine-year-old for not managing it?

[rabidfangurl.livejournal.com]

If you check the IMDb film trivia section, I swear there was a bit about Liam Neeson recording voice-overs for RotS that got cut out because the movie was too long...

(also, the uncut version of the script has said voice-overs included in the dialogue)

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

hat got cut out because the movie was too long...

but weren't put into the Deleted Scenes on DVD?

[iii-demon.livejournal.com]

AaRGRGGDAFGDG#%^LH#$%^YL#^@&!!!!!

:P

.... i've been through these discussions too much already for one lifetime. i have nothing left to say. these movies are now officially about obi-wan.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Obi-Wan and the family Skywalker. Which would be a pretty funny name for a band, come to think of it.

Poor abuse SW-fan. Here, have a cookie.

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

I loved some of those spots, myself. Especially the one where Maul is reading the thing about fear. That was cool.

I love TPM. No, seriously. I never got bored with it. Maybe I'm too easily entertained, or too enthralled with the newness of everything, but I really did like it. Some parts of it bother me, true, but nearly as much as AotC annoys me.

I love my SW DVD collection. *hugs it*

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

The Maul spot is cool. I just wish that it had shown up in the film more.

TPM is one of those cheeze-wiz shows.

AotC made me want to howl, there was so much badness there. I liked Obi-Wan and his plots, but Anakin/Padme was just terrible. I really wish they could have had someone the quality of Leigh Brackett for the script.