movie
of the week:
Sunday, may 30, 1999
Star
Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
Menac
Studio:Lucasfilm(released by Fox),Prod.,Dir.George Lucas,Stars Liam Neeson,Ewan
Macgregor,Natalie Portman,a muppet and lots of computer animated characters.Release
date:Wed.May 19,1999..Theater:20scr.Movie played on:5.Filled to capacity.Gross
so far:$125mil.
Waited for the second week on this one, last week
just didn't want to "brave the crowds" so picked a nice Shakespearean romance,
but that's another review.
Star Wars certainly doesn't disappoint me.
I had a good time at the movies, and that's all
I ask of any movie. Entertain me, and I'm hooked. If I feel disappointed,
then I can really start criticizing all kinds of aspects of the piece.
The best movies lose me in them. I'm too entertained to entertain the idea
of criticizing them. Certainly George has been entertaining me for years,
and he hasn't stopped. I might start criticizing the whole aspect of "directing"
a movie after seeing this, however. Certainly I can see that directing
a movie from here on in is merely the ability to layer images in a Printmaster
program on the computer.
I found the movie to be exciting, great to look
at and although it certainly could not be called original, Geroge's original
idea behind the movie at the beginning back in 1977 sure shines through
for me after seeing it. (The conceipt being that I think this is the only
time in history that a filmmaker has essentially made the same film four
times, and was successful each time.) The Phantom Menace was original in
1977 when it was called Star Wars.It was original, fresh and exciting then.
I pooh-poohed the naysayers who reported that George would spend
the rest of the millennium releasing a nine-part movie series based on
this one work.. I couldn't believe it. This was the director of American
Graffitti, for heaven's sake. He had showed he could work as excellently
in any genre. Well, two or three up to that point, anyway. I sure didn't
want him to expend that much time and energy merchandising that one movie.
I felt as if he were family. I'd attended USC in the early seventies and
he was certainly the boy wonder in the eyes of the film school profs.
Now,I understand why. George knew that in 1977 everything
he had envisioned Star Wars to be couldn't happen yet. He still hadn't
invented the technology. He certainly understood computers, and I know
by hearing him in the infrequent interviews he granted for the release
of the Phantom Menace that he admitted to seeing a completely different
way of making movies. Virtual movies. Movies where you create anything
in your imagination. He's a true visionary. I understand that now. No,
I'm not going to bow down at the feet of the force or anything. I've always
respected him as a filmmaker and used to wonder why he abandoned directing
to build this empire. (Evil empire? No, I get ahead of myself.)
I read the hype and the reviews on this movie. I
am always astounded by the media, and the way in which everyone is always
looking for that "next big thing." I love to spot trends as much as anyone,
and that's why, I think, the release of "this particular movie" caused
so much debate in the media. At a time when a critically bashed project
like "Titanic" can make the money it did. Remember the media assailed that
movie before it was even finished, then all had egg on their faces. I remember
that the tide of the media turned almost 180 degrees overnight.
Confronted with Star Wars, the websites, the devoted
fans, the media predicted wondrous things, and then of course were all
over themselves because in the end the critics didn't like the film and
they thought it hadn't received the numbers they'd predicted. They forget
the one thing about whether people want to see a movie or not. Will it
entertain them?
This movie is more like a theme park ride than a
film, and in a theme park, you have to ask yourself whether you want to
go on the ride again, and I certainly do want to go on this ride, but not
immediately. I think I've had enough of Star Wars already. I must admit
that I "sheaked into" the showing after paying to see The Thirteenth Floor,
a movie which was actually very good, but it seemed to me wasn't marketed
so well because maybe the studio didn't think it would play so well because
it would draw somewhat unfair comparisons to The Matrix, so they dumped
it into Star Wars second weekend. All twelve or thirteen of us watching
The Thrteenth Floor enjoyed it, and the big slice of Americana who watched
Star Wars with me liked that one, too. There are small flaws, but not too
small enough that I won't miss mentioning them as I recall them.
I read where the "opening scrawl" shouldn't have
introduced us to the plot because this was the first episode and the movie
should have shown the audience what was happening. That guy must not have
watched too many movies before 1953 because older movies, especially silents,
and especially serials, had title cards and scrawls explaining exposition.George
fashioned the first trilogy to be presented like a "Saturday afternoon
seial" and this one takes up on that theme.
I read where someone didn't like Jar Jar Binks.
Jar Jar reminded me right away of Roger Rabbit, and I'm sure George thinks
so too. I was surprised that they didn't get Charles Fleishcher to do the
voice, but anyway, the kids in the audience loved him, much like younger
kids loved C3P0 and R2D2 in the "first movies". He's comic relief, and
he serves his purpose. On to my first little flaw, I still think computer
generated characters still do not show "heft" when they move about. But
he moves about with ease and grace, and I believe he's a character and
not an effect. If I felt he were merely an effect, then I wouldn't be entertained,
and I was.
Someone wrote (I may even directly quote these sources
in the future, by the way, in case that is needed.) that the "camera" didn't
linger on the computer generated scenes too long. Osternibly, this critic
didn't realize that in a few months he can get the DVD and make the establishing
shots go on as long as he likes. I thought that, unlike, say, Stanley Kubrick's
2001 or the first Star Trek, that George, in direct agreement with the
style of the original concept, mimics early screen serials, and keeps the
action going. My flaw finder would probably point out that in the scene
at the end where the Jedis are gathered in a room with a view of the city
planet at sundown that those clouds should have moved, and not looked so
much like a matte painting, but hey, I'm not the artist. Maybe George wanted
to digitally "evoke" a matte painting. Or maybe they moved slightly and
I just didn't notice it.
I read as well that the movie didn't have much of
a "plot" or had too jumbled a plot. The plot made sense to me. I didn't
get confused. By the way, I really do not want to write reviews where I
rehash the plot. I understand the purpose of reviews is to tell what a
movie is about, but since I am not a reporter and in all likelihood see
the film after I've read the reviews "before the movie comes out" I'll
see the film, like you, after you'll have read other reviews, or heard
about the plot of the movie on the radio. I would guess by now that the
"plot" or the "mythology" of the Star Wars films has been hashed and rehashed
till the hash is ready to make it's way into the garbage disposal, so I
don't want to mention plot. Except to say that The Phantom Menace, to me,
does a good job of setting up the "universal" conflicts which have been
acted out in the other films. In particular, (PLOT POINT ALERT) I like
the way in which Yoda is skeptical of Anakin. He senses that something
is wrong.As we know, Yoda is right. Flaw: Yoda should be computer animated
in this movie. Frank Oz could still do his voice, but he looks like a muppet.
This was okay in the days when Howard the Duck and the Gremlins were state
of the art, but that was a long time ago, in a movie far far away,
and his presence bothered me here.
Things which greatly impressed me in the movie were
the battle scenes between the Gungans and the battle droids, and the "production
design." I've noticed that in other movies this year like The Matrix or
The Thirteenth Floor, it seems the filmmakers opt to weave the computer
effects into the makeup of the photography and the film stock, (i.e. the
preponderance of the green tinting in The Matrix to invoke the green "lines
of code", and the more "grungy, real" look of the photography, and the
old postcard look for the 1937 period in The Thirteenth Floor which is
even alluded to in the dialogue as an instance where the "colorization"
in the program was wrong. One of the benchmarks of the original Star Wars
in 1977 was that it depicted a "used universe" where everything looked
"real and grungy". The Phantom Menace looks as real as a computer game
or 3D graphic which of course is what it is. I'm not sure this is a flaw.
I really love hyperrealistic science fiction when it comes to the graphics.
Case in point: I love The Fifth Element.
This is a movie I'd wait till June to see. The theaters
are forcing lines for almost every performance because they do sell tickets.
I counted about five or six single seats which were open at the early Sunday
showing I attended.( In one of those single seats.) It wasn't that
it was too crowded, in three or four weeks the theater owners will dispense
with the lines outside the theater and let you back in right after you
buy your ticket. I just don't like the idea of waiting in line these days.
Not when the movie complex I attend each week has twenty screens.
MIKOMETER
RATING: 8 OF 10