Tuesday, June 01, 1999

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace - Addendum #1

Currisant, the capital buildings, Jedi ministry, etc are all totally cool and very well done. The only thinkg that bugged me was the way-over-exposed composite work during the daylight hours in the Jedi chamber. A little too much edge softening for my tastes. I wish they
could have roughed out a little more of the Jedi culture so that the chamber of "Masters?" made more sense. How many Jedi are there? What is all this testing business?

Saber duel both totally cool and aggrivating. The coreography was the best. However the setting was ho-hum seen-it-done-there before. It looked like they went through a warp in spae-time and dropped into the core of Cloud city or the Death star. The setting was totally off from the rest of the city on Naboo. Mike brought up a very good point that they could have used all those cool waterfalls that some poor CGI artist had to spend days working on. Instead we got cat walks and deep holes full of tech-gunk.

Battle droids. They were supposed to be silly and comical and they were. I enjoyed them getting wasted.

Funniest moment in the film: When Tusken raiders take pot shots at Pod racers. Contrary to Mike I liked the announcers of the Pod races. I also chuckled at the notion that Neeson was playing a galactic mini-schindler by purchasing the freedom of a slave.

Amidala and her court of costume changers: Woa this chick has some spendy looking outfits. I again chuckeld at home as I sang a version of of the old Dr. Pepper jinggle. Amildala, your a dala, wouldn't you like to be a dala too? Or stuff like: Knock, knock....Whos there?.....Amidala.....Amidala who?.....Amidala short can you loan me abuck? Here she is, on the run an everything, her people are enslaved and or killed, and she's putting on more make-up and clothing than Roddy McDowell in Planet of the Apes.

Getting back to Kevin Spacey as Gui-Gon Jinn: Picture him playing the role much the same way he played his part in LA confidential. Not you average everyday Jedi. They would have kicked ass. But oh well.

Trade federation is blockading Naboo because Naboo doesn't want to pay taxes? So the federation is like the WTO, not a real country just a bunch of money grubbing beaurocrats that try to force soverign nations into doing stuff that will help the WTO get rich. There is some interesting politics going on here and I wish they come out and explain a bit of it. Would make for a more fun in the end.

Was the story anit climactic? No, not for me. I thought the ending was good. It seems that the next movie is going to be a real downer of a film. They have a lot of time to pass by. Anakin has to grow up and have two kids. He's got to try and save his mum from Tatooine. I predict he will fail and this will drive him into some weird shit with Palpatine waiting for him.

I still think my story makes mroe sence and gells better with the existing three films.

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