This appears to be our old Star Wars catch all thread, which means I can pull this up.
I’m out of town this weekend and when trying to find something to watch in the hotel at the end of the night Friday night, one of the Turner stations I believe had The Phantom Menace on. I was a huge fan of the original trilogy when I first got the VHS tapes the year before the re-releases, where I loved all things Star Wars and could name all the characters and planets. No way I could now but at times I hear the need names of stuff and go “Oh yeah” as I can remember after the fact.
That being said, while I didn’t hate the prequels, they came out in the time where I stopped watching g the same movie over and over again and just started watching more movies. Where I’ve seen the originals dozens of times, I’ve seen Episode once maybe a couple times but certain not in the last fifteen years, if not longer. I don’t think I’ve seen Episode II since theatres and Episode III, I seem to remember the midnight showing then seeing it once when it came to DVD.
So Episode I is on and I’ve heard in recent times how even people that hate the movie still love the pod racing scene and lo and behold, it’s the pod scene that is on when I turn it on. Entertaining enough but man, interesting to half watch this movie with the perspective years later. Anakin is laughably bad, even for a child actor, but it does kinda fit the tone of the originals. Feel bad picking on a kid actor but less bad seeing the person that guy became. It’s crazy how wooden they have Liam Neeson be and to a lesser extent, Kiera Knightley given what she would become.
The one thing that stands out to me is there are several moments in this movie that felt very 90s to me. The original trilogy and even the new series, do not feel like they are part of any specific decade. Just general sci-fi films - though one could presume the decade with the look and effects.
Little things like the pod racing announcers just really evokes when the film was made, which to me, is against the essence of this series. The announcers, and in part, the pod racing scene, very much felt like it was NASCAR inspired. I never was a fan of car racing but I know that it was really big during that stretch. Additionally, when Anakin wins, the announcers do this little dance that would not have fit with the original series and totally feels out of place in anything but a 90s movie. The chunk I watched was an interesting enough look back for me that I’d like to make time and maybe go through the whole series again soon.
Also in doing this, I looked up Jar Jar and ended up reading the vast conspiracies that Jar Jar was intended to be a big villain in the franchise and some of the things that people found that lend credence to the argument is mind blowing. Feel like I need to go in with that in mind and see what happens.