With filming on Star Wars Episode VII underway, it seemed like a good time to revisit the Star Wars prequels. I thought it would be fun to do a “live blog” as I watched each film with thoughts, impressions, and some analysis. So here we go with Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace:

The first scene really has a mysterious feel that fits really well with “the phantom” title but what’s up with the weird kid-looking man/woman that is the captain of Qui-Gon’s ship? The film also looks great. George does a great job showing how far the technology has come since Return of the Jedi.

The trade dispute at the very beginning is an interesting way to show the mundane world of the Jedi. It isn’t adventurous or glamorous to manage trade relations but it definitely seems like something the Jedi’s would do.

I cringed when Obi-Wan said “I have a bad feeling about this.” Why use a line that was traditionally said by other characters and never once spoken by Obi-Wan through the entire original trilogy? It felt awkward and out of place.

Qui-Gon shows his compassion with Jar-Jar by saving him. It’s a good little character moment that makes us as an audience immediately like him.

Robot’s dialogue kills the tension of the first scene. Why did they have to talk like they were mentally deficient? Why not make them a bigger threat so it feels like the Jedi are really being challenged?

Jar-Jar’s introduction truly announces that this isn’t your father’s Star Wars. “Ex-squeeze me”. The possibility that this guy would become a senator strains all credibility.

“How rude” when Jar Jar is poked kills me. No reason to recycle old dialogue from the previous trilogy especially when it was said by a completely different character (C-3PO)

Noble gesture by Qui-gon to save Jar Jar.

Jar Jar feels more like a technical experiment than a legitimately useful character to the story. He exists to show that George could make a character out of complete CG (a HUGE advance for the time) and for comic relief. Frankly, he has more in common with Who Framed Roger Rabbit than Star Wars.

Despite what some may think they remember, the beginning is not boring. The action keeps moving and George continues to throw new things at us every few minutes to keep the pace up.

While I was suffering through another Jar-Jar scene, my daughter was watching next to me and said “ha ha, I love Jar-Jar. He’s my favorite character.” Clearly, George knew what he was doing regardless of my misgivings with the character.

Watto is actually a pretty cool CG character. He looks unique compared to anything we’ve seen in Star Wars before and he’s exceedingly more complex than Jar-Jar.

It was a huge mistake to have Anakin be the creator of C-3PO. There’s no reason for it and it makes the future adventures of C-3PO bizarre and confusing (even with the memory-wipe plot device). It brings new meaning to C-3PO’s exclamation in A New Hope “Thank the Maker!”.

Let me address the Midi-chlorians controversy. I get why George wrote it into the script. He needed an easy expository plot device to tell the audience Anakin was powerful. A MUCH more interesting and clever way to do this would have been to SHOW Anakin do something so amazing with the force that Qui-Gon could say “he is more powerful than Master Yoda.” The Midi-chlorians are a mistake that has haunted the entire Star Wars universe ever since. Taking away the mystical nature of the force and replacing it with simple bio-chemistry was a huge blunder.

The Pod Race really is amazing. Next to the ending sword battle, this is the most exciting and jaw-dropping sequence of this entire film. The stakes are high. Everything just keeps getting worse for Anakin from a slow start, to a mis-aligned engine, to a fire in the turbine, it’s an exciting and edge-of-your-seat race. Great writing here.

Jabba’s introduction at the beginning of the Pod Race is a welcome nod to the original trilogy that doesn’t feel forced or out of place. Also, it’s nice to get a look at Jabba’s wife (isn’t that who the creature next to him is?)

The Tuskan Raiders shooting at the racers was a stroke of comic genius. Well-done on that George. That was genuinely funny and clever to play them like some backwoods rednecks shooting at a Nascar race.

Anakin’s parting from his mother is so overly melodramatic. That scene has not aged well.

The special effects during the landing at Coruscant are breathtaking. Really next generation for the time and still looks quite good.

I always thought the conceptual design and realization of the Imperial Senate was great. It’s functional and well-shot.

The Jedi Council on the other hand is totally mishandled. They come off as power-hungry usurpers that deny their own prophecies. Their questioning of Anakin doesn’t make any sense. Of course, he misses his mother. Their queries are trivialities that have nothing to do with his destiny that they are trying to ascertain. It’s all gibberish masquerading as some deeper meaning.

Practically speaking, the Gungan’s shield design during the Battle of Naboo doesn’t make a lot of sense. It seems a very easy design to defeat with two pack animals having to stay close to each other to generate the shield barrier.

That final sword battle with Darth Maul is truly epic. Still the best of the entire series. It doesn’t hurt that John William’s score makes it 10x more exciting. I do hate that they killed off Darth Maul so soon. He should have been in the next two movies. He had a great set up and then… boom… he’s gone way too soon.

The whole subplot with Anakin (who supposedly knows everything about machines) suddenly not being able to figure out why he is flying the fighter ship and what’s going on is just ridiculous. I understand that it is here to give Anakin something to do but it is so childish, it’s hard for me to really enjoy it. I mean: “Qui Gon said to stay in this cockpit so that’s what I’m going to do.” Come on!

The “triple” battle works well and fits right in with Return of the Jedi’s similar 3-front battle.

My overall feeling is that this episode is the best of the prequels despite its weaknesses. But I’ll withhold a final opinion until I’ve watched the other two again.

A few weeks back, I watched the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune. In case you don’t know the basic story, the film recounts director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s attempt to make Frank Herbert’s science fiction masterpiece Dune into a film in the early 1970’s. It isn’t giving anything away to say that Jodorowsky’s film was never made but what’s interesting about this story is how far the film planning got before the studios pulled the plug. This is why many film historian’s call it: “The greatest film never made.”

A Success from Failure

So why make a documentary about a director who failed to get his film made? Besides it being an interesting historical anecdote, the sheer enormity of the plan that Jodorowsky had for the film is staggering. This was a guy with vision like few directors have ever had. The colossal failure of such a gigantic pre-production process really is unique in the history of Hollywood.

What really comes through though is how this failure of a film project spawned so many other projects after. The documentary ends with a series of subsequent films that were heavily influenced by Jodorowsky’s storyboards and concept designs. This film that never was has resonated in hollywood throughout nearly every other science fiction film since.

A Man with a Vision

Above all else, the film really shows the power of an artist with a vision. Jodorowsky assembled some of the biggest names in the movie business, from actors, to storyboard artists, to concept-designers, it is a “who’s who” list of individuals that would go on to be the biggest names in movies in later years.

“The lesson is, someone who truly believes in their art, who is utterly devoted to their project, who has a plan and can articulate that goal from their heart can attract the best. Others will follow that kind of passion.”

Here’s some of the critical attributes Jodorowsky has that allowed him to get such a crazy and overly ambitious project so far along:

Passion – Jodorowsky believed in his film. It was all he thought or talked about when he was preparing it. 100% of his creative energy was channeled towards the film.

Negotiation – There were all kinds of actors, studio executives, and artists that had different ideas about where the film should go and why they wanted to be involved. Jodorowsky was quite clever in negotiating with each person to get them what they really wanted while still getting them to contribute their talents to his vision.

Emotional involvement – Jodorowsky wasn’t just doing a job. He wasn’t just making a fun movie. He truly believed his film would change the world. It had nearly become a pseudo-religion, the concepts, the themes, the power of what he was creating. Everyone else latched onto that belief and wanted to be involved in something bigger than themselves.

The Legacy of Jodorowsky’s Dune

With the recent tragic death of H.R. Giger, the legacy of this film is even more timely. Dan O’Bannon and H.R. Giger met while working on Jodorowsky’s Dune. They formed a creative bond and when the Dune project collapsed, they went on together to a little project called Alien. Dan O’Bannon would go on to write Ridley Scott’s Alien and of course Giger would do some of the most amazing and influential creature/production design in the history of science fiction and horror. The echoes of this “un-film” are still being heard today and all because of one man’s passionate vision.