It was kind of big news that the re-release of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace was number two at the American box office over the weekend. Fall Guy was number one and it's said to be a disappointing number one so maybe the standards aren't exactly high. Still, Phantom Menace took in 8 million dollars. That's pretty good for a movie everyone's got on their streaming services or on their shelves. It did better than the re-release of Return of the Jedi a couple years ago.
Where's the cultural brainwashing on the prequels? Is it a bad movie everyone has been tricked into thinking is good, or is it a good movie everyone was tricked into thinking was bad? This really fascinates me. I like the prequels, not as much as the original trilogy, but I like them. It wasn't like everyone hated them at first and then they grew in esteem. Roger Ebert gave Phantom Menace four stars when it came out. I remember I bought the big deluxe VHS copy (which one of my cousins took). I had a Queen Amidala doll and a Phantom Menace CD case. Generally people didn't like Jar-Jar. One white friend described him as being like Amos 'n' Andy in terms of being an anachronistic racial caricature. But a black woman I worked with at the time said she and her kids adored Jar-Jar. That's anecdotal but Jar-Jar says "'tis" and "boyo". He doesn't really fit the racial caricature profile except he's the cowardly sidekick like Stepin Fetchit often was. A perspective on film history would have better informed my coworker and her kids they should be offended. But it's all perspective, it's all subjective.
Well, the main problem with the prequels is they lacked anything like the Han/Luke/Leia chemistry and that mostly comes down to Lucas' luck with casting the first time. People have really warmed to the chemistry between Obi-Wan and Anakin in the second and third films but it's somehow never as raw as those original trilogy actors. Maybe the cultural difference is key--younger audiences don't connect with such natural interactions. Maybe it's just because I live in Japan and in my professional circles there's a lot of weird resentment and backstabbing but I haven't met a Gen Z person who's comfortable speaking openly and honestly, at least not outside the internet. I also watched an episode of Ally McBeal last night in which the characters debate whether you should look in a partner's eye during sex. Having sex in itself would be too much of a novelty in a more modern production. So for younger audiences, the lower heat levels between the prequel actors may actually be a selling point.
Watching Phantom Menace last night, I really felt like it's a remarkable film. The levels of creative detail are fascinating. There are lots of little moments, like Jabba flicking that little animal off his balcony during the pod race and the thing screams as it falls like bloody murder. Was that a sentient lifeform? Is this a sign of Jabba's cruel indifference or did he basically just kill a bug? We can't really be sure and it feels alien because of that. We easily understand but we also don't. It's like the cantina in A New Hope.
The set designs and costumes are all amazing. For all the criticism of the boring title crawl, the movie actually maintains a lot of tension and a very brisk pace. It helps to listen to it with the volume up high. Ben Burtt's sound design helps the basic general background sense of terror that comes along with the space scenes and the dizzying camera twists. There's something odd about the pilot of Qui-Gon an Obi-Wan's ship. Then there's a double cross and the ship's destroyed. The Jedi switch between fighting for their lives to trying to reach the bridge to complete their mission. What are these Trade Federation guys doing? It may take time for the kids to understand but once you do, it is interesting that this merchant fleet has suddenly decided to blockade a sovereign territory.
The politics, which are supposed to be the big snooze fest, have aged really well. When Palpatine's talking to Amidala about the senate bureaucrats who can't get anything done, we can all sympathise, even as we know that he's the crooked puppet master. Hell, that's not so different from Trump. For the people who remember seeing Episode I when they were kids twenty years ago, discovering the insight into politics to-day seems a revelation and maybe kind of a comfort that George Lucas understood this aspect of human nature all those years ago. Maybe we can cope with this.
And then, of course, there's final duel. The pod race is also pretty good and has, again, a level of detail you don't see nowadays.
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