Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace... in 3D
Yeah... ok... so I've actually already seen this some years ago... but not in the theater... not in 3D... and I've never written about it. So deal.
Roll Call: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Llyod, Ahmed Best, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Frank Oz, Samuel L. Jackson, Sophia Coppola, Keira Knightley (ok, so not all those folks are "stars" but just figured I'd point out they they were in it). Written (for better or worse) and directed by George Lucas.
What's It About: It's the beast that restarted it all. Basically the movie's sole purpose is to establish the world of Star Wars... that is the new world of Star Wars... which is actually the world that predated (in the story) the old world of Star Wars from the originally released trilogy. ... wait... what? In terms of plot, Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman) is trying to save Naboo- through peaceful channels- from the blockade and more nefarious actions of the evil Trade Federation. A couple of Jedi Knights (Liam Neeson's Qui-Gon Jinn and Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi) lend aid, especially as the shit (read: Sith) hits the fan. Oh, and there's also pod-racing. Just cuz.
What About It: Well, there's no way to avoid it. When one thinks about Episode I one can't help but think about the one and only Jar Jar Binks- possibly the worst movie character ever conceived (or so the fanboys would have us believe... sadly, I don't think their far off). And, well, it's true Jar Jar Binks is a stain on the movie. He's horribly annoying and distracting. Once he stumbles on screen, the movie never had a chance. I originally thought it was so awful, that it killed my will to see the other two movies of the "new" trilogy... and I still haven't gotten around to checking them out. In a way, though, I was actually happy that George Lucas wanted to put an addition on Skywalker Ranch. It gave me the opportunity to re-watch the movie with- perhaps- a better, more experienced and distanced perspective. I haven't watched any of the original Star Wars movies in quite some time, and I wasn't overly eager to see what Episode I had to offer, having already had that experience. So maybe a fresh look (in mind-numbingly gratuitous 3D no less!) would help me better get a handle on the movie's actual merits.. if it had any.
In short, it still kinda stunk. And Binks was as annoying and distracting as ever... if not more so given his extra dimensionality here. The rest of the story, however, wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was on first viewing. It wasn't original-trilogy good either, though. But- again- what really drags it down is the inclusion of Jar Jar Binks (and to a lesser extent all the Gungans). So just what made Binks (Ahmed Best, who should- according to George Lucas [as pointed out in an Entertainment Weekly article]- be regarded as a pioneer for giving one of the first motion-capture performances ever) so blasted annoying? Or rather why did he torpedo this movie? Actually, there are several reasons why Binks was such an awful character and why that fact shoved the movie onto the trash heap. Here are a few:
1.) Binks was aggressively slap-sticky in a movie series that had previously proven to have some degree of subtlety, nuance, and nimbleness- if also still bordering on melodrama from time to time. The EW article pointed out that Binks was hardly the first misstep for Lucas and company when it came to the Star Wars films. Apparently both C-3PO and the Ewoks were also ridiculous additions to the Star Wars canon. And, yeah, while these both might have been silly and perhaps ultimately goofy additions to the story line, they were never quite as aggressively ridiculous as Binks proved to be. C-3PO was an annoying chatterbox and the Ewoks were present solely to exploit a cute/kiddie angle, but I didn't see either as being in-your-face. Binks is in-your-face throughout the entire movie. He's constantly tripping over himself, making life miserable for the other characters, screwing things up, or succeeding only through blind, but dumb, luck. On top of that, he's a whiny, wussy bastard that had no right surviving the establishment of the series' mythology. The only thing missing from this trite and grating performance was somebody inadvertently smashing his Gungan gonads (preferably with a Star Wars-esque football of some kind) and him keeling over while screeching in an alien soprano. All that said, his pratfalls and slapstick schtick seemed to delight the ample number of kiddies in the audience. But is that enough to justify this mess of a character? Was Lucas really trying to set the background for the entire space opera or was he trying to convert Star Wars into a run-of-the-mill (albeit with awesome special effects) kiddie flick? Actually with the inclusion of a pint-sized Anakin (Jake Lloyd in his second-to-last performance...ever.) and somewhat meaningless (outside of its inherent appeal to kiddies) pod-racing sequence, it would seem that making a kids' flick was really Lucas's goal. But come on, George, kids probably would have dug the cool space-y-ness of the flick and all the awesome lightsaber dueling without the inclusion of Binks and his cornucopia of pratfalls. I mean, really, let's juxtapose the grace and all-out badassery of a two-on-one lightsaber battle with Binks' falling all over himself, inadvertently offing a number of Federation battle droids. Come. On. How'd these two sequences end up in the same movie? Or perhaps the better question is why? I understand if George wanted to make a movie his young kids could enjoy, but if his young kids like that kind of crap shouldn't they just tune into America's Funniest Home Videos? Then the more sophisticated audience wouldn't have to suffer for their delights.
2.) That bloody language. It just adds to the ridiculousness of Binks. "Mee-sah this" and "Me-sah that." Whiny. Ugh. And here's the bit that's really frustrating: it didn't need to be this way. It actually smacks of laziness or lack of creativity that Lucas chose to create a language based on some bastardization of English... or, perhaps more accurately... pigeon-English. Lucas had created a number of other languages built around funky noises, beeps, growls, and the like. Why would the Gungans have developed this crappy Enligh-esque language? I could even forgive it if the Gungans used the "English-esque" language only to communicate with their humanoid acquaintances. After all, it could easily be understood if the Gungans developed a language based on that which their Naboo neighbors speak to communicate with said neighbors. Happens all the time. But why in the world would they communicate with each other through that same awful speak. Couldn't Lucas have come up with some other grunts or whatnot and have that serve as the basis of Gungan communication? Yeah, easily. And perhaps he should have.
3.) Binks seems like the antithesis of Star Wars. What other character even resembles Binks's over-the-top-ness in anyway? The closest may be when Yoda wasn't revealed to be Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back. And even then he's a ways off of what Binks represents. All that said, this is actually the stickiest argument. Binks really only actually seems like the antithesis of Star Wars to us. And in reality, we don't count. As my brother-in-law, Jason (who saw the movie with me), pointed out, "it's his movie, and obviously he can do what he wants with it." So true. It is his movie. He created the Star Wars universe. He designed the Star Wars feel. Is it really up to us to determine what does or does not belong in the Star Wars story? Some may argue that Lucas loses some of his proprietary rights once he puts the movie on public display. The audience then adopts it and it becomes as much theirs as his. This is actually a bit ridiculous. We may be able to determine what ultimately feels right for the story, but we can't truthfully make determinations on what does or does not belong in the tale. That's Lucas's job. But, that doesn't mean we have to like it. And here, it's plain to see that most folks didn't like Binks's inclusion, and that his inclusion made the movie feel less like a traditional Star Wars movie based on the standard established by episodes four, five, and six. Debating whether or not Binks was an authentic Star Wars character is actually rather pointless. He was- in the minds of many fans, including myself- an annoying and gratuitous persona that served only to degrade the quality of the movie. You win some... you lose some, and Lucas lost big here.
In the end, Jar Jar Binks wasn't the only reason why The Phantom Menace came off as a lesser film. For some reason, this particular effort kind of came off as a showcase displaying all that Lucas and his crack team of special effects mad scientists could create. You want some funky aliens? Yep. Here you go. Awesome pod-racing sequences? We can do that. Sweeping, amazing-looking battle scenes? We got that covered. I never had the feeling that Lucas had been using the original trilogy as a means of showing off, and perhaps I'm being too harsh in this assessment here. But it just seemed showy. I don't know. Maybe the original trilogy would have seemed showy too had I been old enough to have experienced the three movies in their time. Instead, the special effects came off as cool, but, perhaps a bit quaint- though still amazing and integral to the story. And they felt more real to boot. I think one of the biggest mistakes Lucas made was when he started to digitally add creatures here and there to later releases of episodes four, five, and six. Incredibly (or not) it was actually the CGI images that stuck out and somehow looked less real. And The Phantom Menace suffers in much the same way. Sure Chewie looked- to a degree- like a guy in a walking shag-carpeted costume in the original trilogy (because he was)... but he was there. Not so with the winged, barter-happy alien from Episode I. It looks as though Neeson's Qui-Gon Jinn is talking to a point on the wall- as though he sees right through his adversary. Han Solo always looked like he was bantering with Chewbacca. A subtle difference, but an appreciated one.
Of course, all that would seem to amount to nit-picking at best, and at worst being frustrated with Lucas for not limiting himself only to outdated and undoubtedly much more expensive technology to pull his movie off. This would seem like an especially specious dig considering how apparently new the technology Lucas was using was. But, I can't help but think that this hindered the movie in some small way. Even if that makes me a hair-splitting prick.
When you mix in the fact that the story revolved around a one-note adrenaline-junkie kid, the somewhat laborious and explanation-heavy plot (kind of a necessity with movies that are more or less solely created to establish a series... see Batman Begins... though I would say that The Phantom Menace tries too hard to explain many things... things that perhaps would have been better off left as a bit of a mystery), the forced nature of the burgeoning "love" story between Anakin Skywalker and Queen Amidala (Lucas and company plant the seeds... and it seems wrong), and some of the more outlandish revelations included here (thinking mostly of the fact that it turns out that Anakin Skywalker created C-3PO... seems ridiculous. Darth Vader created 3PO...kind of creates a hmmm... oh... ugh situation...in my mind) and you're left with a movie that might have struggled a bit without the inclusion of Jar Jar Binks. Was it as horrible as I originally thought it was? No, and I probably shouldn't have written off the next two installments either. Unfortunately, it wasn't everything that it could have been... and perhaps worse as a huge Star Wars fan... it wasn't everything that I hoped it would be.
The Bottom Line: I know I went on about how we really don't have the right to say whether something is or is not worthy of the Star Wars universe. If George Lucas says it's so, then, it's so. Still, I really do have a tough time believing that this was the movie Lucas dreamed up when he plotted out the entire Star Wars saga so many years ago. To that end, it's hard to view Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace as anything other than a massive disappointment. Would it have been as disappointing or negatively viewed without the lofty expectations produced by Episodes Four, Five, and Six? Who knows, but that's a bit irrelevant. The fact is, as it stands (damn you to hell, Jar Jar Binks) it just wasn't a great movie.
Grade: C+
No comments:
Post a Comment