Kevin's Watch

It's a tie: Return of the Jedi AND Phantom Menace. I thought Padme was great, and Anakin wasn't a douche yet. However, Jar-Jar was annoying. The metachlorian/virgin birth garbage was kind of pathetic, too. Not quite as disappointing as pygmy orcs and warrior Koalas, but tat's only because RotJ had already lowered my expectations.

+JMJ+

Cord Hurn wrote:The Phantom Menace is the worst, because of that insuffably long pod race and because of too much Jar Jar Binks.

Too muchen of Jar Jar? Egads! Whatsa yousa sayin?!?

Wos.

I didn't worry too much about the midichlorians myself, although the virgin birth...

Apart from that and Jar Jar, I didn't hate TPM.

--A

PM does have the best lightsaber duel in the entire saga, at least in my opinion, but upon repeated viewings, is about the only thing it has going for it.
I'm surprised to see a couple votes for Attack of the Clones, as I thought that was MUCH better than PM. I liked the surprise of a little film noir-like detective work, however slight, as well as the sound effects during the asteroid field Kenobi/Jango/Boba scene, and I did take delight in seeing Yoda whipping it out the first time on screen. By which I mean his lightsaber.
I think I prefer Attack of the Clones over Revenge of the Sith.

Yoda's lightsabre fight was terrible. I get that he's small, but all the flipping around...the GF burst into laughter when she saw it. She laughs if she just thinks about it. She now only refers to Yoda as "the flying chipmunk guy."

--A

Yeah, it was dumb, but dumb fun, in my opinion. Such a surprise to see Yoda put the smack down on Count Dookie. I enjoyed it for Attack of the Clowns, but was bored silly during the second iteration with the Emperor.

But even discounting that, I still think the movie holds up well, except for the love dialog that didn't work...ever. Still, much more groundwork is laid out for his turn to the dark side, and several fun scenes. And Padme with the ripped white outfit.

I thought the groundwork was a bit too ham-fisted. Like they were trying too hard to be "See? This is how he turns evil!"

--A

Has Star Wars ever been very subtle?

Hahaha, ok, fair point maybe.

--A

I understand though. One of my biggest complaints about Return of the Jedi isn't the damn Ewoks, it's the section with Vader, the Emperor and Luke. It should have been more epic, and it kinda is, but I always hated the Emperor needling Luke that "ohh...do this and join the Dark side. Hey, do this and you will start down to the path to the Dark side. Hey looky....Dark Side cookies! Hey Luke...c'mon...join us. Dark side. You'll like it here." It's like a bully trying to convince you to run into his fist. It's stupid. So I suppose we all have our least favorite non-subtle moments of Star Wars.

Huh, I never really saw that scene like that, but I doubtless will in future...

--A

Its been 7 years since the last time I posted in this thread. Since then a 7th Star Wars film was released (who would have thought that 7 years ago?) and I have to say my opinion hasn't moved or changed in any way. I've watched The Phantom Menace a few times in the intervening years and with each viewing I seem to dislike the sucky parts more and appreciate the genuinely good aspects. Its not a complete train wreck but it is unnecessarily flawed. This is the film I dislike Natalie Portman the least so Padme is less insufferable and more proactive than in later films. By the third film she is just standing around most of the time. Jake Lloyd's Anakin is competing heavily with Jar Jar to be the most annoying character and its giving Jar Jar a run for his money but in the end our favorite Gungan wins the most hated award even after all of this time.

I actually can appreciate what it must have been like for 10 year olds to see TPM in the theater the first time. Like ANH was for my generation TPM was a spectacle for kids that could identify with little Annie and forgive drawn out parliamentary procedure scenes where 30 somethings just rolled our eyes in disgust.

Another update to the order of best to worst for me...

Empire
Hope
Awakens
Rogue
Jedi
Sith
Menace
Clones

I'll go with:

Empire
Hope
Rogue
Awakens
Jedi
Sith
Menace
Clones

I'll go with:

Empire
Hope
Rogue
Awakens
Sith
Jedi
Clones
Menace

Was the poll closed? I never voted. You can tell I never voted, because Revenge of the Sith has no votes. And every second of that movie is worse than the entire movie of whatever the second worst movie in history ever made is.

Fist and Faith wrote:Was the poll closed? I never voted. You can tell I never voted, because Revenge of the Sith has no votes. And every second of that movie is worse than the entire movie of whatever the second worst movie in history ever made is.

Come on, Fist. Stop dancing around the issue and tell us what you really think.