EddieMoney

As soon as I bought my ticket.

BrewCrew

My hopes were crushed before I saw it as I read the book a couple of weeks prior. Have not read a book since then.

UAIOE

I didn't have any hopes to be crushed, it was just a movie to me.

But I can say I found the pre-movie toy/tie-in release to be rather pompous (more than most). Here are a bunch of toys for a movie that hasn't proven its worth, but since its "Star Wars" we know people will buy it in droves.

HN

force power being attributed to midichlorian count. wtf wast that shit?

Decker

Yeah, that was it for me as well. I was willing to give them a lot of leeway with the new aliens and all that crap in exchange for new lightsaber battles and space duels, but when we get "step on poop" jokes, or announcers saying "That's gotta hurt!" in a Star Wars movie, things have gone very, very wrong.

Oliver Clothesoff

definitely very early. probably when the awesomeness of Qui Gon cutting through the door with his lightsaber was quashed by the awful neimoidians (sp?) commentary ("this is impossible!" etc). felt my heart sink at that moment.

Tom Creo

Never but please, feel free to hate on.

devilshalo

Jake opening his mouth to speak. Jar Jar opening his mouth to speaketh.

dugan

Is that really what you meant to say?

PhantomStranger

The Phantom Menace had the most needlessly complicated crawl, it was almost a bad parody of the originals. Lucas might as well handed out a pamphlet to every moviegoer discussing the tariff issues.

Decker

Thank you, I will.

What's so disappointing about Ep 1 (besides all the juvinile crap) is that the story is SO peripheral and insignificant. Say what you will about II and III, at least they did (for the most part) what prequels are supposed to do and fills in the blanks and explains what happens next. What big questions got answered in Episode 1? "Why did Obi Wan train Anakin Skywalker before he was ready?" "How did Emperor Palatine first become a leader?" "Did Darth Vader ever meet his future wife as a small boy?" I don't think anyone was asking those questions while watching the original trilogy. They didn't need to be answered and this film didn't need to be made. This movie went to great lengths to explain, in great detail, how Anakin was such a gifted pilot -- then we only see Darth Vader fly once in the original trilogy and almost get shot down within two minutes. Again : Why?
If the Prequels had started in Episode II, with a brief explanation about how Obi Wan lost his mentor and decided to train young Anakin himself, I don't think anyone would have missed anything, story-wise

Oliver Clothesoff

Brack

I think The Phantom Edit is a pretty good version of Episode I. Attack of the Phantom was a decent version of Episode II as well.

Rockmjd23

Looking back, with the OT Special Editions, we sort of got a preview of the nonsense we would later see in Phantom Menace and the rest of the PT. We saw bad CGI (Jabba, Mos Eisley), unnecessary backstory (Jabba, Biggs), childish new characters and scenes (Jedi Rocks, Jawa slapstick), losing the sense of mystery, danger, and horror (Rancor, Wampa, and Saarlac scene changes), and neutering of the Saga in general (Greedo shooting first).

All of that would later show up in droves in the PT, especially in Phantom Menace.

GoldenJCJ

Hmm, I always assumed Watto was a bad Italian stereotype from the quasi-wife beater shirt to the greasy facial stubble to the name ending with a vowel but hearing him described as a dishonest Jew makes perfect sense.

Damn, politically corrupt Koreans, dishonest Jews, The Three Stooges robots, Jamaican amphibians...Lucas lost his fucking mind making this movie.

Hiro11

There were two early warning signs for me during the initial viewing:
Opening crawl includes the words "trade negotiations".
The comically dumb droids opened the doors on Jedi they were trying to gas after only a few seconds.

But the wheels really came off during the legendarily awful Gungan City scene. As soon as I saw that stupid, jowly "Mayor" I gave up all hope.

Numanoid

Don't forget the enormous hook nose.

JimRochester

I was never a huge Star Wars fan. I saw the original in the theater in 77 and enjoyed it but never thought it would grow into the industry it did. The only enjoyment I had from the prequels was taking my son to see them. He enjoyed tham and that's all that mattered. I thought the kid was a horrible casting choice, the story was stupid, and felt guilty for finding natalie portman who was a kid at the time attractive.

Obi-Wanma

She was almost 18 by the time it came out, it's all good.

Groucho

You guys are not up to date with the latest code words. Watto is a "Hollywood liberal."

Supermallet

The Phantom Edit is not very good. Heaven help me, I probably watched three or four fan edits to see if anyone could make TPM decent. There was one good edit, and it was much more sophisticated than The Phantom Edit. All The Phantom Edit did was cut out most of the Jar-Jar stuff from Naboo, but by the time they get to Tatooine it's as if the editor didn't care anymore, and most of the movie is the same from that point on.

As for TPM itself, I was a freshman in high school when it came out, and I lived for Star Wars up to that point. And I fooled myself into thinking it was a worthwhile movie. I am ashamed to say I saw it five times in its theatrical run, but it wasn't until Episode II that I realized how bad both movies were. And Episode II is considerably better than Episode I, but still not good. By the time Episode III came out I didn't even bother to catch it until the crowds died down.

I will say this, at least among the people I knew, there were a lot of apologists for Episode I when it first came out. I think people wanted new Star Wars so bad that they were willing to forgive almost anything, but once the newness wore off, it was over.

And as much as I might have been an apologist back then, when the Blu-rays came out and Lucas still gave the finger to the fans, I said fuck it, I'm not buying any more Star Wars anything. And I still haven't bought the Blu-rays or any Star Wars products since. If Episode VII gets good reviews I'll see it, otherwise I just don't care enough anymore. Also if the OOT is released in HD I'll buy those, but only the OT. I have good fan edits of the PT and if I really ever want to see them again those are what I will use.

Josh-da-man

I think the biggest problem with the prequels is that George Lucas didn't really understand what people liked about Star Wars in the first place. And, as such, almost every creative choice he made was the wrong one. More humor. More cartoony aliens. More kiddie stuff.

Supermallet

I think Return of the Jedi should have been warning enough, but since most of us were kids (or saw it for the first time as kids) when it came out, it didn't sink in.

Dr. DVD

This along with some of the Young Indiana Jones chronicles, or Howard the Duck, or Willow. Hell, the signs were all there, we just wouldn't pay heed. ROTJ really has a lot of stuff that makes no sense, starting with Luke's plan to rescue Han Solo, which relies on a LOT of coincidences. I loved how Robot Chicken parodied the idiotic notion that the whole Empire was dead because the Emperor was on the Death Star that got destroyed. Makes no sense whatsoever.


That said, it really didn't sink in on me how much TPM really stunk until I started watching it on video. Once it was off the big screen, a lot of the problems became more clear. I know I'm not the only one; many of my friends saw it several times when it was first released. I guess we were so happy to have Star Wars back that we put ourselves in a state of denial.

I will say that the IMAX cut of AOTC is pretty damn good. The love story is all but gone, and the Obi-Wan arc is done without a bunch of interruption. While I will not really defend the first two, I will stand by ROTS , as I think it is a pretty good movie overall.


FWIW, it's been 15 years, can't we just forget it?

Mike86

Return of the Jedi is the weakest of the original trilogy but it's overall still not that bad if you ask me. The opening sequence at Jabba's palace, the speeder bike chase on Endor, and the final duel between Luke and Vader are still some of my favorite moments of all of Star Wars. There was more stuff that was aimed at kids obviously like the Ewoks but overall it's still a good film and I don't think it's even close to as bad as the prequels (although I will say that even though I don't love it Revenge of the Sith is somewhat okay).