Star
Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace
Opens Wednesday, May 19
Five
Things I Hate About You
BY
DAVE McCOY
dmccoy@wweek.com
There must be something real behind the spectacle that
is The Phantom Menace, right? Sorry. The film's so
confusing, disjointed, nonlinear and full of critters with
rubber faces that I thought I was having an acid flashback,
only acid trips aren't dull and The Phantom Menace
is.
Within the first couple of minutes, young Obi-Wan Kenobi
(Ewan McGregor) enters the film, surveys a ridiculous set
brimming with computer effects and guys in Land of the
Lost costumes, and utters prophetically, "I have a bad
feeling about this." He wasn't the only one. This dud leaves
you two options: lower your expectations (i.e., act like
a Trekkie) or, even better, ignore the whole circus.
Top
Five Reasons to Skip The Phantom Menace
1. Critters = Toys
The Phantom Menace legitimizes
all fears fans had that Lucas would turn his series into
Fraggle Rock. If you thought Return of the Jedi
was lame and cutesy, this time you'll be wishing for the
Ewoks' subtlety. Essentially, Lucas has made one very long
Toys R Us commercial. There are about 20 creatures or robots
for every one human character, and all are perfectly marketable
action-figure prospects. Lucas hasn't made the slightest
attempt to appeal to the sensibilities and intelligence
of the original core audience. He forgot that we've grown
up, and he aims everything at children. We get creations
like Jar Jar Binks, an irritating, floppy-eared, slang-talkin'
headache that looks like Goofy and acts like a bad imitation
of RuPaul. Outer space hasn't seen a supporting character
this annoying and insufferable since Chris Tucker screamed
and mugged his way through The Fifth Element. Meanwhile,
the Empire's legions of Stormtroopers have been replaced
by faceless CGI robots that sound like Stephen Hawking and
shatter into pieces when they die--in other words, they're
much better toys!
2. Spaced Out
The narrative is an unstructured bore,
basically an excuse to watch Jedis and critters bounce from
one lavishly decorated, overstimulating set to another.
Lucas spent decades revolutionizing the special-effects
industry and running Industrial Light & Magic, but he
forgot that films aren't just flashy composites of bright
lights, wacky gizmos and loud noises. Star Wars'
greatest strengths were its engaging heroes and imposing
villains. Here, Lucas lazily concocts unfocused eye candy
and randomly placed action sequences. This feels like a
first-draft script; since no one says no to George, it's
also a final draft. Star Wars was a space western
with a point. This film busies itself with treaties, intergalactic
taxation and trade disputes, but how does Lucas expect his
audience to understand it if he can't focus on anything
besides images?
3. Cast Out
Lucas landed his first big-name cast
but forgot to direct it. He stuffs silly dialogue in the
actors' mouths and makes them fend for themselves. At best,
the wooden acting resembles a dubbed Hong Kong film; at
worst, it feels like one long screen test set in a Sid and
Marty Krofft nightmare. The Force ignored Liam Neeson and
Ewan McGregor. They're Jedis without a clue. Natalie Portman's
luded-out performance as Queen Amidala made me yearn for
coked-up Carrie Fisher's bitchy Princess Leia. Hell, Lucas
didn't even let Samuel Jackson swing a light saber.
4. Pac-Man Fever
If you didn't know that LucasArts
has been a leading force in the computer video-game industry
for a decade, you will after this. The whole thing plays
like a first-person shooter game.
5. Rust Never Sleeps
Lucas' storytelling is rusty,
and this entire comeback is embarrassingly sloppy. He tries
juggling a quadruple finale (20 minutes of saber duels,
dogfights and other assorted warfare) but botches it. It
feels like he edited the footage with a Cuisinart. Every
time the film seems like it's settling down and ready to
gel into something cohesive, someone whips out a light saber
or another critter spastically tears its way across the
screen. Lucas directs like he's got sharks in his shorts.
Someone stop him before he strikes again.
The
Grinch That Stole Star Wars
BY
KIM MORGAN
243-2122
ext. 342
America's suicide rate soars right after Christmas; expectations
are so unattainably high that grinding disappointment often
results. Given this, should we worry about those people
who have stood for days, through rain and hail, to experience
this year's early Christmas--The Phantom Menace?
The answer is yes. The Phantom Menace is not very
good. In fact, it's quite bad. And Old Saint Lucas, who
was supposed to make this the best Star Wars-mas
ever, turns out to be the Grinch.
Forget masterpieces, Lucas couldn't even give us fun escapism,
which essentially is the whole point of films like these.
The turgid plot, which kids may not understand (and which
after a while doesn't really matter anyway) goes something
like this: Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan
Kenobi attempt to end the feud between the Republic and
the rebel Trade Federation by aiding Queen Amidala on the
planet Naboo. Of course, more happens, but you stop paying
attention shortly after the set-up.
Menace is a poorly written prologue, and without
the benefit of the previous installments, it couldn't stand
on its own. Yoda, Jabba the Hut, R2-D2 and a naked C-3PO
all make cameos, but only to please crowds. People actually
cheered when they saw these iconic, reassuring visages.
This was understandable because the film's human characters
are less animated than the droids. True, Star Wars
boasted some crappy acting and some even crappier writing,
but at least Lucas focused his energy on characters. Here,
humans play more like empty body doubles serving a preexisting
legend. For a movie so dialogue-driven, this is a grave
shame. Quite simply, Lucas needed better writers (i.e.,
not himself) and better actors to chronicle the humble beginnings
of Darth Vader, a.k.a. Anakin Skywalker. As young Anakin,
Jake Lloyd is so awful that one wonders if Lucas owed a
favor to some over-zealous stage mom. Why did he cast such
an uncharismatic and downright bad actor to play an essential
character who later becomes such a memorable, villainous
legend? Hello! This is DARTH VADER! Couldn't Lucas have
splurged a little by not hiring from the Welch's grape juice
commercial pool of child actors? As the queen Natalie Portman
is no improvement. She seems to think that if you talk slowly
and deeply, you'll be taken seriously.
And then there are the many creatures, all very annoying.
The worst is Jar Jar Binks, who serves as both the Chewbacca
figure and the gay Cadbury servant C-3PO. He is supposed
to appeal to the kiddies with his me-so-clumsy spit language
gibberish, but he really sounds like a Vietnamese whore
propositioning the troops. You keep expecting to hear, "Me
love you long time."
The only professionals present are Liam Neeson and Ewan
McGregor (the great Samuel Jackson is given nothing to do
except look cool), but they have little time to develop
their characters or do anything resonant or exciting. Neeson
is eloquent and charming, but he often looks silly, sporting
a Jeff "the Dude" Lebowski haircut and traipsing around
in his robes of purity (good guys wear beige). McGregor
fares better as Obi-Wan Kenobi, with even scarier hair (a
rat tail/mullet concoction). He perfectly emulates Alec
Guinness' vocal inflections and mannerisms and seems like
the only actor who actually studied the past saga. In future
episodes McGregor could serve the purpose Harrison Ford
so charismatically did as Han Solo. Solo was the life force
and spirit that held those sagas together, and his spiritual
and physical presence is missed in this lame prequel. With
a love affair between Anakin and Amidala (again played by
the atrocious Lloyd and Portman) set to dominate the next
film, McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi is truly our only hope.
Geek
Love
BY
BRIAN LIBBY
243-2122 ext. 355
The Phantom Menace has been the most highly anticipated
film of my life--and the one I have most feared. George
Lucas' ongoing space opera has been part of who I am for
as long as I remember. Friends and I quote lines from the
film like biblical verses. I still play with my toy Millennium
Falcon, turning out the lights to enhance its flashing lasers.
Yes, I'll admit it: I'm a Star Wars geek. Like other
geeks, I've desperately wanted to reenter the Star Wars
universe. But I've also been worried that my perfect
image of it would be tarnished if Lucas screwed up.
Though the latest movie is not perfect, George Lucas' army
of fans can rest assured that The Phantom Menace
is still instantly recognizable as Star Wars through
and through. It tells deceptively simple stories about a
brave but overmatched teen monarch, a boy on planet Tatooine
with an untapped feel for the Force, and the Jedi Knights
who love and protect them. There are icily sleek ships blasting
out of space ports, stunning visual effects that fill every
square inch of the screen with action and, best of all,
a deliciously evil new villain. In tribesman's war paint,
Darth Maul (Ray Park) exudes sinister creepiness. He steals
the show by speaking softly (or barely at all) and carrying
a wicked double-sided light saber.
But Menace also suffers from many of the same weaknesses
as the original Star Wars. Sounding like an exchange
student with a lisp, alleged comic-relief creature Jar Jar
Binks is more of a Hanna-Barbera reject. Like the Ewoks
before him, he evokes more cringes than chuckles. The digitally
created set pieces that had Lucas salivating for so long
only add to the feeling that the film is just one big computer
game. And while Star Wars was never about complex
character studies, here we learn even less about what makes
these characters tick.
The best advice I can give my fellow fanatics is the same
warning Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn gives to his apprentice, Obi-Wan
Kenobi: "Your focus determines your reality." You'll still
find a lot to enjoy about The Phantom Menace, but
comparisons of Lucas' latest creation to his beloved original
may feel like a light-saber strike to the heart.
Honor
Diversity
BY
CARYN B. BROOKS
cbrooks@wweek.com
Unlike most people of my generation, I was protected from
the "normal" nostalgic glow of The Phantom Menace.
See, I was one of those strange kids who wasn't swept away
by the Star Wars frenzy back in 1977. I remember
sitting in the theater as the final credits lifted thinking
two things: "this sucked" and "what's wrong with me?" I
loved films like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,
and Star Wars just didn't work for me. There
was nothing about the characters that grabbed me; and while
the special effects were certainly cool, they couldn't carry
the film. My aversion to Star Wars troubled me a
bit, but I learned to live with "being different."
Similar emotions hit me after The Phantom Menace--with
a slight twist. This time, when the credits were running
and I was thinking that the movie sucked, instead of wondering
what I'd missed, I wondered what was wrong with the fans
camping in line outside and George Lucas.
A hundred things about this movie irked me, but I'll just
share one. This film series is supposedly about creating
new societies and ways to rethink our view of "humanity,"
but I haven't seen a movie in the last 10 years that relies
so heavily on pathetically tired racial stereotypes. The
Trade Federation's greedy bad guys have buglike faces and
speak with Charlie Chan-no-tickee-no-laundry Chinese-American
accents. The tightwad salesman, with his large hooked "trunk,"
is a hideous Semitic stereotype. The new "cuddly" character,
Jar Jar Binks, while donkeyish in appearance, is a practically
criminal swipe of the Stepin Fetchit Negro film role that
I hoped had been buried for good. Binks wears overalls,
fumbles his way around and smiles stupidly when he gets
caught screwing up. His signature language is nothing more
than slave dialect with a little Caribbean spice thrown
in. I'm not politically correct, but this stuff is so annoying
that Lucas is bound to get shit for this--and he should.
So 22 years have passed, and I still admit I don't get it.
But this time Lucas is the one who should feel guilty.
BOOK
REVIEW
Coruscant,
We Have a Problem
BY
ZACH DUNDAS
zdundas@wweek.com
Scientists say there is no sound in space. That's why your
geek pals cringe when spaceships disintegrate with max-decibel
"kaa-blams" in sci-fi flicks. It's, like, so unrealistic.
I just might be onto the scientific find of the century,
because the sucking sound emanating from Terry Brooks' novelization
of The Phantom Menace is so vast and so deafening
that it must be audible across the galaxy.
Movie novelizations are not known for their Dostoevskian
sweep, and Brooks' rank hackery does little for the cause.
The star author of the fantasy Sword of Shannara
writes like a semi-talented high-school sophomore who's
recently been admonished to "use lots of adjectives!" Still,
while wading through this overwrought swill, I got the feeling
that the real problems with The Phantom Menace--rambling
plot, goofball characters, inane dialogue--are not of Brooks'
doing. No, these sins must be laid at the feet of their
creator.
I will defend the original trilogy to the death against
all comers--wanker cinephiles, Star Trek cretins,
you name it. But after just one chapter of Brooks' adaption
of the George Lucas script, I was seized by the sinking
feeling that everything is about to change.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but know this: If the flick
blows with one-tenth of the book's gale-force intensity,
Lucas stands guilty of soiling one of the key pillars of
my childhood. And if that's the case, Fat Boy better make
sure security at Skywalker Ranch has been beefed up.
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Willamette Week | originally
published May 19, 1999
|
