I didn't get to skip school, but the second school was over, my friend and I went to watch it....and then again after that as well.
Yeah, not the greatest film ever by any means, the hype of it, or more, the "over hype" of it killed it for many people. Plenty little stupid things George thought would be funny, that just weren't.
But just the experience of it all, with friends, and at the time, a NEW STAR WARS film.
Despite George not being the best director/dialog writer, at least he had a goal of what he wanted and was aiming for, even when it was different than what the fans were expecting......Disney can't even seem to get a solid goal in mind, well, other than, Star Wars = money.....
I’ve spent a lot of time recently studying vintage news reports from the lead-up to TPM’s release. The most hyped and anticipated film in history, full-stop. Absolutely nothing would have met those expectations. It was totally insane. Wild.
I also recently rewatched all six films. There’s nothing wrong with TPM. It’s a very good and incredibly well-made film. While it does has its flaws, the story is very clever, and the groundwork is carefully laid for the overall arc of the trilogy (and the series) as a whole. The “skip TPM, especially in Machete Order” people are wrong. There were things I liked and things I didn’t like, back on opening day, but the film has grown more and more on me, over the years. I see what Lucas was doing, in terms of story, characters, and themes, and I appreciate it.
This film has been unjustly reviled for many years, mainly because of expectations. People had 16 years to imagine what this film would be, and the vast majority of “criticisms” boil down to, “it wasn’t what I expected”, or “X should have been Y”.
It always comes down to “should have been”.
I once got into a debate with someone who was dead-set on hating both the film and Lucas. For example, he claimed that the goofy battle droids were just “Lucas throwing crap at the wall”. I countered that they were a
plot point: the droids are goody and ineffective, which is why Palpatine has to go with Plan B by creating the clone army. This guy wouldn’t hear any of it. As far as he was concerned, it was just dumb, and Lucas had no story and no good ideas. Period.
The people who enshrined the RedLetterMedia reviews as shining examples of film criticism should be ashamed of themselves, frankly. Those hitpiece “reviews” unfortunately turned the tide against the films, and are a perfect expression of middle-aged fans taking out their aggression just because a film was not what they had EXPECTED since childhood. Instead of turning their thinking caps around and trying to take in the story and the ideas as presented with an open mind, they threw a hissy-fit because they didn’t get bounty hunters and Darth Vader killing people.
On the flipside, I recently made the decision to revisit the dreaded Disney films. Years have passed, and my wounds have healed, which puts me in a position to objectively analyze the absolute trainwreck of it. They’re all terrible to varying degrees, but THE LAST JEDI is legitimately one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. Maybe even one of the worst films ever made. Nothing makes sense. Nothing matters. Overlong, pretentious, tone-deaf insanity with zero regard for what had come before or for the Big Picture of the entire series. All style and no substance, made by a childlike narcissist indie-film weirdo.
I find myself feeling renewed contempt for the shills and weirdos who have defended it as some kind of subversive, artistic masterpiece for the past six years. They picked the wrong hill to die on. Geez. The emperor truly has no clothes.
Not one of the Disney movies has even a fraction of the intelligence, sociological relevance, or boundless imagination of THE PHANTOM MENACE. People accused the film (and the prequels in general) of killing the STAR WARS franchise, and then Disney came along and asked them to hold their beer. This is validation of the once in a lifetime genius of George Lucas, because the abject failure of Disney has drawn a dividing line between Lucas Era and Disney Era.
I’ll take Lucas’ flawed surface and solid core over Disney’s flashy surface and hollow core any day.
So, yeah, I’d love to see TPM in the theater, but The Mouse gets no money from me.
collider.com
