Thread: DPAD Top Movies Face/Off Round 2 #9: Star Wars - The Phantom Menace v Dawn of the Dead (2004)
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Vyse
Blue Rogues Captain
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Sure edit out the following:
Scenes with Nemoidians speaking
Scenes with Anikin speaking
Scenes with Watto
Scenes with Jar Jar Binks
Scenes with the droids being 'goofy'
Scenes with Padme speaking
Scenes with Boss Nass
Do that and you might have something worth watching
The CGI was annoying, no doubt. At the time CGI was the new hotness and people thought they would eventually be better than practical effects. What we see with the prequels and modern marvel movies etc is that when everything is shot on greenscreen, actors reactions are off, lighting is off, and there's no reality to ground the production in which makes the action meaningless. So in this case the CGI characters were not up to scratch, because CGI was even less ready then than it is today. It's still shit by the way. With all that said, Watto annoyed me less than the others.
Anakin was too young - consider the direction taken later in the series they should have gone with an older teenager or something like that, so that would be a change that I'd make. The droids were always goofy - in the original trilogy they were the comedy light relief. One could argue that their presence meant that adding Jar Jar Binks overbalanced the light relief. Certainly I'd trim his appearances down a bit.
Padme, I get what they were trying to do with the accent, but it doesn't work, agreed. However, the character is fine. I think some script editing could have improved things, but then again Star Wars always did have clunky writing. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
To me it did a lot of things right. The intrigue and political stuff, the machinations of the sith and how the emperor came to be, those things are fascinating and I like that George Lucas was brave enough to stick to his vision and create something that wasn't a safe rehash of the originals like TFA or subverting expectations like Last Jedi. It told its own story in the Star Wars universe, and it paved the way for wonderful things like KOTOR. Indeed, while I used to look at Ep 1 and proclaim it un-star-wars, playing KOTOR made me appreciate the world-building and brought those prequels back into Star Wars for me.
No doubt part of my feelings towards the prequels has been affected by how shit the sequels were, a comparison that strongly favours the prequels, and part of it is what they could be, what they were hinting at, but honestly also some of it is just that I can sit and watch those films and have a good time with them, just as I did with the originals, and like I can't with the sequels.
Phantom Menace is straight trash
Baby Darth Vader yelling "YIPEEEEEEEE"
Baby Darth Vader yelling "YIPEEEEEEEE"
The Phantom Menace does seem to be very polarising. I can see why people had issues with Attack of the Clones, due to its middle act being very underdone, but TPM is pretty consistent throughout the entire movie. The whole birth by midichlorian thing is a bit much, but otherwise there are a lot of good characters who aren't 1 dimensional (Jar Jar excluded) who do some pretty interesting things.
The thing I like the most with TPM, which a lot of new movies lack, is the sense of mystery. The movie starts out with the two Jedi chilling at a meeting and then there are various twists and turns that take them across the galaxy and into very unexpected and unusual circumstances. Also the movie has great designs and a bright, uplifting feel which really establishes how easygoing things seemed to be. The light before the dark times indeed:
The thing I like the most with TPM, which a lot of new movies lack, is the sense of mystery. The movie starts out with the two Jedi chilling at a meeting and then there are various twists and turns that take them across the galaxy and into very unexpected and unusual circumstances. Also the movie has great designs and a bright, uplifting feel which really establishes how easygoing things seemed to be. The light before the dark times indeed:
The first tie of Round 2! To settle this tie, we'll have a rematch on Saturday but this time I will not vote. (unless there is another tie, then I'll break the tie)
I wonder if the 70s Dawn of the Dead would have done better or worse in this matchup?
While I won't be voting in the rematch, I will be spamming Phantom Menace pics and GIFs in the thread.
I wonder if the 70s Dawn of the Dead would have done better or worse in this matchup?
While I won't be voting in the rematch, I will be spamming Phantom Menace pics and GIFs in the thread.
The Phantom Menace does seem to be very polarising. I can see why people had issues with Attack of the Clones, due to its middle act being very underdone, but TPM is pretty consistent throughout the entire movie. The whole birth by midichlorian thing is a bit much, but otherwise there are a lot of good characters who aren't 1 dimensional (Jar Jar excluded) who do some pretty interesting things.
The thing I like the most with TPM, which a lot of new movies lack, is the sense of mystery. The movie starts out with the two Jedi chilling at a meeting and then there are various twists and turns that take them across the galaxy and into very unexpected and unusual circumstances. Also the movie has great designs and a bright, uplifting feel which really establishes how easygoing things seemed to be. The light before the dark times indeed:
Jar Jar actually goes through a character arc in the movie. He learns to be more useful and gets respect from other gungans in the end.
Which means he has more depth than any of the Disney characters.
Agreed about the look of the film too. The civilized age aesthetic looks so good.