How The Phantom Menace Killed the Star Wars Franchise

If Lucas cut Episode 3's effects budget in half and focused his energy on finding the best writer possible for the script I would be happy. I think if he had a contest with a $5,000 prize for the best Episode 3 script he would come up with something much better than TPM's or AOTC's sadly amateurish scripts.

$5,000 spent in the right place and GL's problems are solved.

 

"$5,000 spent in the right place and GL's problems are solved."

You're right Jabba. He should take that five grand and pay a lawyer to sue you for defamation.

 

if its just about turning a profit, i dont see why george would say that....205 mil pays for the movie and marketing and everything...especially considering its only the domestic take, he's gonna get at least three or four times that with the international box office, and video and everything...it seems to me he meant that he would need to change episode three to be more of a blockbuster, just for reputation's sake.

 

OK I have to put my foot down now. AOTC does NOT have a sadly amateurish script. It is awesome and very well written. I think they nailed the script with the exception of one or two minor dialogue problems. And bashing AOTC's script seems off topic for this thread.

 

"I.........I killed them, I killed them all. They're dead, every single one of them. And not just the men, but the women.....and the children too.......They're like animals, and i SLAUGHTERD them like animals...................i HATE them!"

That is NOT....i repeat....NOT amateurish scriptwriting. or would you prefer this

Luke: Nevertheless, I'm taking Captain Solo and his friends. You can either profit by this, or be destroyed. It's your choice, but I warn you not to underestimate my powers.

I can's stand that line, nor the way it's delivered

all the movies have their own flaws....deal with it

 

ROTJ has the worst script of the OT. But it's still much better quality than TPM or AOTC.

AOTC has a beautiful underlying story, though. Better than all the Star Wars films save ANH. It's the dialogue that seems to have been written by a team of second graders. I think that's what stood out most as the flaw of TPM, and why the public isn't going back for a second look at AOTC.

 

aotc did indeed have an amateurish script. and quoting one line, and saying "is this amateurish" does not disprove it. the only really adult, mature, and nuanced exchange in the movie i think is between obi wan and dooku, when obi wan is being held in that thing.

i agree rotj had the weakest script of the ot. harrison ford overplayed han's cheekiness quite a bit, but it wasnt nearly as bad as c-3po's endless one liners in aotc and that ridiculous sequence of him in the factory. (a c-3po head just happens to fit a battle droid body and vice versa?? that's almost as bad as the mac-compatible alien ship in independence day -- yeah yeah, maybe i'm not just letting go and having fun, but if that part of independence day deserves any ridicule, so does the part in aotc) all of the ot so far is superior than any of the pt.

 

its called comic relief.

i laughed my @ss of during the switched heads mishap, it was great. and im willing to bet you laughed too.

 

I, a TPM basher, had no problems with AOTC. Well, for the most part.

 

Ignore Jabba. He's the only person in this entire forum who think ROTJ is a masterpiece compared to AOTC
As for this other comment:

"Those things can be said about Spider-Man. Spider-Man even has the PG13 rating to discourage little kids. Yet it is going to come much closer to TPM's box office in the U.S. than AOTC. So, you can't really blame the loss of the 4-7 crowd for AOTC's box office performance. "

Did Spider-Man had a scene where Peter Parker killed a whole tribe of people, including women and children? Did Spider-Man end with the bad guys winning?
Nope, didn't think so. These prequels are really beyond your grasp, aren't they?

Speaking of flop sequels, did you know Godfather II made less than half what the original film did at the box office? What was Coppola thinking?

 

Unlike Godfather 2, though, AOTC is not going to win best picture. And in 20 years, it will be no more than a cinematic footnote to the original Star Wars.

And Spider-Man had the impalement, which at the very least is as violent as AOTC's decapitations. The ratings board judged Spider-Man to be more adult/violent than AOTC, and certainly that was the way George Lucas wanted it. If he was trying to keep out 7 year olds, he wouldn't have the breakfast cereal and snack food promotional tie-ins.

 

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKen does not like the PT. Trust me, Ep.3 could be the best Star Wars movie ever, with the critics loving it, and KKKKKKKKKKKKKKen will say, I think I could have done a better job than Lucu$, it can not touch the OT<-----right KKKKKKKKKKen.



Rolls eyes.

 

comic relief does not have to involve going beyond the reality that lucas himself set up. its just so far beyond the threshold for the suspension of disbelief, because it violates the movies own rules. i was NOT laughing...i was not amused in the least, just the way i was not amused buy the eopie fart...however the girl two seats over from was one of those obnoxious movie goers who was laughing and yelling to the screen during that whole sequence. my friend had to tell her to shut up, heh.

 

"Did Spider-Man had a scene where Peter Parker killed a whole tribe of people"

Technically, neither did AOTC Slash slash, that's it. No more violent than Green Goblin's little bombs.

 

Jabba, Lurking, you missed my point. I'm not talking about the level of violence in AOTC, I'm talking about who commits that violence. Name one other "children's film" where the hero commits genocide and the bad guys secretly win at the end. AOTC is a very subversive film and that may be one reason it is not appealing to the popcorn munchers out there the same way as a simple fun and heroic film like Spidey.

 

You may be right in that respect. Families maybe are not buying AOTC's PG rating. I've argued elsewhere that AOTC is the first Star Wars movie that tries to connect the audience emotionally to the anguish of killing, as opposed to the tradition anguish of seeing someone you love die (Luke/Anakin, Luke/Obi-wan, Luke/Yoda, even the Ewok death scene, Qui-Gon/Obi-wan, Anakin/his mother).

Anakin is the first Star Wars character ever to express anguish over the act of killing. It, I think, a lesson that contradicts itself elsewhere in the movie.

 

well, in anh, they blew up an entire planet...that was genocide on a far greater scale.

 

>>>Anakin is the first Star Wars character ever to express anguish over the act of killing. It, I think, a lesson that contradicts itself elsewhere in the movie.

I think it contradicts itself in the same scene! Having just killed a whole camp of Tuskens because of the death of a single individual, then talking about wanting to be able to stop death... How about not going on kill-crazy rampages? That's one way of stopping death...

 

I'm thinking that the rest of the saga glorifies violence so fully that Anakin's little moment of regret doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

There's such a funny irony between Yoda expressing regret over the start of the clone wars and all the fans (including me of course!) jumping up and down, pumping their fists, yelling, "YEAH BABY!!! THE CLONE WARS HAVE BEGUN!!!!"

What I'm saying is that it's almost too late for Lucas to start interjecting commentary about the horror of war. It's not called "Star Wars" for nothing.

 

Wars not make one great.

And I'm sorry, but the dialogue scenes in AOTC were FAR superior to anything in TPM or ROTJ. Watch the scene between Obi-Wan and Dex. Or Obi-Wan meeting the Kaminoans. Or Obi-Wan and Jango's first meeting. Or any scene with Dooku. They all have a spark that was sadly missing from the character exchanges in the last two Star Wars films (except possibly the Emperor's scenes in ROTJ and Watto's scenes in TPM). I can still enjoy a Star Wars film that's lacking in the dialogue department, but AOTC was definitely a step in the right direction. The only talking scene I found painful to watch was the fireplace scene, but luckily there were things I could look at to distract me from the dialogue

 

I should point out that the Youngling scene in AOTC is one of my all time favorites of the saga. It's well written, poignant, and there's a nostalgic evocation of Yoda's first moments of screentime in ESB. Seeing Yoda with his sense of humor restored was worth $8.50 to me, many times over.

 

The 5th film of a 25-year old franchise makes $300 million. That sounds incredible to me.

 

Are you saying that the reaction to TPM ended the uniqueness of Star Wars? Is that the reason why AOTC is performing like a mainstreamer?

 

I too liked the Youngling scene also, very magical. On the subject of the horrors of war in Star Wars. The Clone Wars are going to be a strange beast. Mindless robots vs Human clones built to act like mindless robots. The Droids and clones are both fearless and oblivious to the horrors of war. Of course the Jedi are going to be the only "human" casualties of the War but the Jedi themselves as a rule are Fearless. The clone Wars are going to be a strange sanitised conflict. Obviously there is the underlying imorality of enginering human life to be used as battlefeild fodder, which is similar to how people were dehumanised in World War 1.
But anyway back on topic, If Episode 3 is as dark as it has to be, surely it's going to make even less than AOTC. If this is the case then this means that a thinking man's Star Wars movie would not have kept the franchise afloat and that the series actually needed the likes of TPM and ROTJ to keep the franchise alive.

 

Dolphin, maybe that's it. Does that sound plausible? I'm not really sure anymore. I've convinced myself that the public adored TPM.

The "thinking man's Star Wars" would be wonderful thing, sure. But a movie like that would have to do uncomfortable things like expose the audience to its own battle lust. Making the audience feel uncomfortable about the things it finds entertaining is not a way to make a megahit.

And yet Yoda's line at the end of the movie suggests that Episode 3 may be "truly, deeply" different than all the other Star Wars movies. Yoda isn't looking forward to the Clone War. Unlike the fans..