PT The best Prequel movie, and here is why....

One Aspect of The Phantom Menace I think makes It the best Prequel is All the real world Locations, Tatooine, Tunisia, Naboo, Italy, Spain, and London, and one thing that made the CGI on Corucant look better is most shots were at night not as harsh sun light.

 

Glad you like TPM!

 

Nothing IMO, can beat it's Title. Everything else was a bonus.

MJ

 

The Phantom Menace is a close second to Revenge of the Sith for me, if only because of the expansive use of practical effects and the way the film still feels more natural and less digitized.

 

I never understood the hate towards The Phantom Menace that has persisted during the past 16 years, a movie that has received, at the worst, 3 stars over 5... Sure, there's a character for which the comic relief doesn't work at all (Jar Jar Binks) and there are moments which are tedious. But it's not a horrible movie. It's better than other big blockbusters, which are really mediocre, that have been released during the past years like the Transformers series by Michael Bay, Batman and Robin, the Mommy 3, Catwoman, the Expendables, Twilight, etc...

Objectively speaking, it's an OK movie which, I think, is grotesquely victim of the over expectations.

Sometimes, I even think that The Phantom Menace is better than Attack of the Clones. But, it's certainly not better than Revenge of the Sith.

 

I suspect that no matter what, many were never going to like The Phantom Menace or any Star Wars movie that came out. From what I've heard, even before TPM came out, some fans were already hating and complaining about it. Again, they were never going to like any new Star Wars movie. Especially a prequel. Since everyone had a different idea about what went down, "Before the Dark Times, before the Empire."

I also suspect The Force Awakens is going to struggle with this too. It's been 10 years since the last live action Star Wars and 32 since ROTJ. Everyone has a different idea of what happened after ROTJ, some more than others especially thanks to the EU. Some are already complaining, like about a certain lightsaber for example.

 

TPM had no location shooting in Spain. You're thinking of AOTC.

Also, Watford -- the location of the forest used for some Naboo scenes -- is technically outside of London, in the county of Hertfordshire.

I enjoy the night-time Coruscant scenes in TPM and AOTC and ROTS. I agree that it is a very effective-looking location at night.

The chemical-based cinematography does make TPM look rather nice, in my opinion. And I'm fond of the locations (real, practical, digital).

Does that intuitively make Episode I the "best"? Not for me, no.

That said, my heart seems to be with TPM the most, my mind with AOTC, and my gut with ROTS.

Guess I get to enjoy all three almost equally.

 

I have the exact same feeling about the Original Trilogy.
ANH is the most sympathetic and likeable, Empire is the one you like thinking about, and Jedi is the one you enjoy watching. For some reason, my mind tends to sway towards ROTS as being the one my mind chooses among the Prequels

 

It was a bit of a jerry-rigged breakdown on my part. The categories are vague and there is much overlap. I enjoy watching them all about the same.

That said, TPM -- to me -- is warmer and nicely diverting, AOTC has a more complex emotional texture, with wonderful visual symbolism and various intellectual implications, and ROTS is the gut-wrenching pop masterpiece.

ANH is very likeable, yes, like the scoundrel at its centre, while TESB is colder and more metallic, but beautifully engaging, and ROTJ is the fun, "once more unto the breach" zany end.

Great saga any way you slice it, in my opinion.

 

My favorite thing about Attack of the clones, If I am to make an argument for it's supremacy in the context of the prequels, is the conveyor belt sequence.

It's the most ingenious action setpiece of the entire saga. Padmé and Anakin are thrust into a factory; a sort of landscape of the unconscious (the belly of the whale)
Joseph Campbell wrote in The Hero With A Thousand Faces about 'the belly of the whale' as a part of the hero's journey where our protagonist plunges into the unknown and encounters spirits and beings of altering shapes. Which fits perfectly here.
At the end of this scene, Anakin and Padme are in love.

It wonderfully foreshadows what is to become of them; they will be consumed. Anakin by anger and Padme by sadness. The machinations of the factory represents Sidious behind-the-scenes machinations; he will turn them into products, use them and them throw them away when they are depleted. This scene has everything, even freudian psychology.

'Obi-Wan's gonna kill me,' Anakin says after having his lightsaber chopped off. Which is castration anxiety, and, ultimately what will lead him down the path of trying to destroy Obi-Wan. It really is quite glorious, and humorous if you think about it.

Attack of the Clones is the best prequel movie, and that was why.

 

It's interesting to see these comparisons showing how the individual episodes of the OT and PT line up. A couple of months ago, I introduced a friend of mine to Star Wars. Although she's in her 30s, she knew absolutely nothing about the films (to give an idea of how little she knew, here are two questions she asked me before watching: "Is Princess Leia evil?" and "Is Darth Vader a robot?") So I lent her the DVDs, and she watched all six films (4-6, followed by 1-3.) Here's how she ranked them:

1st Place: "Return Of The Jedi"
2nd Place / Almost tied for 1st: "Revenge Of The Sith"

3rd Place: A tie between "Empire Strikes Back" and "Attack Of The Clones." She gave a slight lead to ESB, simply because she couldn't stand the beginning of AOTC, but the second half made up for it.

4th Place: "A New Hope."
5th Place: "The Phantom Menace"

I found it interesting how the episodes from both trilogies, for her, lined up almost exactly in her rankings.

 

You're speaking my language. It's my favourite set-piece of AOTC, the PT, and possibly the saga. I certainly think it's the most symbolic and abstract.

I've written a few things about it on here before. If you're interested, here are some posts where I talk about it:

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/droid-factory-sequence.50007246/page-3#post-50358878

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...om-the-prequels.50015395/page-4#post-51182803

And a post from just yesterday, in fact:

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/anakin-became-evil-too-quickly.50030431/page-12#post-52492317

It has many unusual design features.

One is -- as I note in one of those posts above -- how it begins: very suddenly. It's the only action sequence to begin with a fall that immediately kicks it off.

I also just plain like having an action skit involving Anakin and Padme and the droids. Even though they aren't all aware of each other's presence. All happening in some crazy underground facility that teases Mustafar in Episode III. How cool is that?

You have some neat observations there. Thanks for adding them. Castration anxiety *leading* Anakin down his dark path is a good one. I hadn't looked at it like that before.

I just love how sucked-up into the action all four characters are (well, maybe not Artoo, who floats above and interferes with the factory, while the other characters allow the factory to intefere with *them*).

And the industrialization motif. Which tells you you're a world away from TPM -- even the first half of AOTC (Kamino) -- now. How cluttered and grubby it all is compared to the neat, angelic look of the clone facility on Kamino.

There is also the futility of Anakin's actions being stressed: a portent of how he will fail to defeat death through violence. Only Artoo achieves anything at all. The other characters are helpless and come near to death. Padme is nearly incinerated and Anakin is almost chopped into pieces.

I sense that's also a reason some people find AOTC a little hard-going. The characters attempt John Wayne-ish things, but they don't gain anything from doing so, and essentially make things worse. For such a colourful movie, it's surprisingly gloomy. And that's a tension I also admire.

I recall actually being a little irritated by it when I saw AOTC on the big screen in 2002, but it has powered its way into my imagination since then. Really love where it sits in the movie and how different it is. Great, too, that Lucas came up with it fairly late on. Adds brilliantly to the eccentric nature of AOTC for me.

 

I enjoyed your description of the conveyor-belt scene as a 'slapstick' in one of the posts - George Lucas said it himself that he's, in his own words, 'more of a goofy director', which is how I've come to read and intepret him after all these years. I felt like I had a big aha-moment when he said that. He doesn't take himself that seriously, which is healthy. He takes all the story elements he created for Star Wars as they should be: with a great dose of playfulness and a grain of salt.

He is not Spielberg and he is not Coppola, which is why I love that he tries to do, and does his own thing.

I sometimes get the feeling that he just wants to press the pause button for second and say 'This is all terribly silly, by the way' encouraging the watchers of his movies to simply enjoy the ride.

He's the kind of director who can foreshadow a severe ending in a very sardonic way, like when Obi-Wan says, 'Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the death of me?', to Anakin while walking into the bar looking for Zam -- it's so casual you barely even notice it. Much like the aforementioned 'Obi-Wan's gonna kill me'-moment; these things are not accidental, they are lighthearted pieces of commentary that hint at deeply tragic fates.

Someone I forget once defined 'genius' as someone who can hold two seemingly contradictory ideas in mind simoultanesly; here it's both Tragedy and Comedy. Hence, George Lucas is genius, or makes movies that are genius, whatever.

As you said, AOTC has an eccentric streak much like its creator. I admire GL because he made the Prequels in such an idiosyncratic and, yes, 'goofy' way. He understood that Star Wars is simply not one thing.

Also, you mentioned being irritated at the conveyor-belt sequence upon the initial viewing; which I think is a very common reaction I too intially shared, and basically what all Prequel-bashing boils down too; a sort of irritation about the seemingly paradoxial, double-edge nature of the PT, and its symbolism. We are confused, and nothing pays off like you'd want it too. In the PT, and especially in AOTC, Nothing is what it seems.

 

aotc still had tatooine and naboo. i also don't understand why people complain about weird cgi planets in sw. i want to see crazy planets that you can't film practically.

 

Thank you. You have a very cogent grasp of things.

I bolded the parts that I find most resonant.

As for the "genius" angle. I've read -- and I think I've read it more than once -- that a good definition of genius (if there is a singular definition), or *a* genius, is someone who can find unexpected or invisible links between things.

And maybe they also care less for propriety than the average person: us muggy mortals. They find convention absurd and they don't cow away from complication or the fear of being seen as different.

There is plenty of "goof" in Star Wars; and AOTC is not stingy at being goofy. And yes, there is something manifestly peculiar and mercurial about AOTC's topology. It has a discursive quality. It paradoxically pays homage to the series by being defiantly different: cheese and profundity elaborately entwined, like a Moebius strip.

My two dataries' worth.

 

i've said it before. I think ROTS is the best prequel, and maybe the best of all the Star Wars movies, but The Phantom Menace is my favorite to watch. Star Wars are very visual movies and The Phantom Menace is the prettiest of all to look at.

 

Cryogenic and Charland Burthes
There is no other movie I know that has the same kind of deep human drama (particularly Anakin and bis mother) while still being proudly silly (e.g. 3PO) and thorougly entertaining like AOTC.

 

Tunisia was Tatooine, You are Right Spain was episode 2 but Italy, and London were Naboo. I believe the Grass Battle, The Under Water Scenes on Naboo and the Gungan sacred place were all done in Italy. The Under Water scenes were shot in an Italian Cave with a Smoke machine. and Theed Palace I believe was shot in London. You can Watch "the Beginning" that great Documentary for all this Information....

 

TPM isn't my favourite of the PT, but I can certainly agree with you on how awesome the locations were. TPM and AOTC had an edge over ROTS in that way, I think.

 

Grass Battle

Entirely computer-generated (based on manipulated photographs of a real landscape: Livermore Hills in California) with some practical effects work (staged explosions digitally composited in).

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Naboo

http://www.starwars.com/news/galact...eal-world-endor-and-naboos-great-grass-plains


Under Water Scenes

Mixture of computer-generated imagery, models, and miniatures. There's a funny story about this:

Ewan McGregor: "Just before I got the job, George Lucas showed me the studios and they were building this huge submarine. I got excited and asked, ‘Will we be going underwater in that?’ He looked at me as if I was nuts and said, ‘You know, none of it is real.’"

http://www.scotsman.com/what-s-on/f...nd-being-able-to-lead-a-normal-life-1-2712319


Gungan Sacred Place

Whippendell Woods, Watford, Hertfordshire, England (a little outside of London).

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Whippendell_Woods

http://www.starwarslocations.com/article.php?story=20071008041303639


Theed Palace

Parts of it were shot on-location at the Royal Palace in Caserta, Italy. Other parts were shot at Leavesden Studios (again, in Hertfordshire, just outside of London). A miniature was also used for Theed itself.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Theed_Royal_Palace

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Caserta

Info on Leavesden and other shooting locations here:

http://www.starwars.com/news/galactic-backpacking-part-6-visiting-real-world-coruscant-and-more

 

It occurs to me to frame your analogy in the context of the whole saga; many fans consider the prequel trilogy to be wholly 'cheese', and the original trilogy to be wholly 'profundity'. In reality, every episode of the Wars is an intersection of pop and philosophy in the greatest way possible.

I have noticed that people tend to mix up Star Wars as it really is with Star Wars as a nostalgic idea (like what they saw in Star Wars as children, for example. Star Wars should consist of 'childlike wonder', they say!) I understand why George Lucas would be dissatisfied with this particular conceptualization of his (yes, his) story. George Lucas valiantly fashioned the prequels into a sort of avant-garde hyperbreed of old film tropes. The result is a strange beast, indeed.

AOTC is the entry of the saga that feels the least Star Wars-y , which is why it is the least pretentious of them all, and why I find it so amusingly effortless.

Also, thank you for many interesting ideas and thoughts about the Prequels. I tend to enjoy reading everything you write.

 

I am going on the Documentary "The Beginning" everything I stated is on the Documentary, I own the Documentary and have watched it a thousand times, but you are right parts of theed were in Italy the other parts like I said are in London. wikipedia is highly inaccurate anyone can just submit false stuff, when my sister went to the University of Maryland the Professors had a strict rule with the Students, No Wikipedia can beused for Home Work Assignments, I think that says It all And I am pretty sure that is the same for all Universities .....

 

I added a couple more links.

You seem confused. Wikipedia is a reliable reference source; but it depends on the information you're looking for and the strength of a given entry (not all entries are equal).

Also, I only gave a single Wikipedia link, but several "Wookiepedia" links (starwars.wikia.com), which is not Wikipedia, but a "wiki" specifically for Star Wars. I don't know if I'd call it super-accurate, but it's reasonable.

You're right, though, that stuff can be altered on Wikipedia, sometimes for nefarious purposes. Politicians, for example, will pay people to alter their biographies and remove unfavourable details. Police departments have also been caught making alterations to entries on particular crimes and articles detailing corruption. But that's beyond the scope of this thread...

Please go over my links. Relying on "The Beginning" alone can lead one to false conclusions. I've seen it countless times, too. The filming locations for the Star Wars movies are well-documented. I added some links from the official Star Wars website (they're relatively new articles and they're really cool).

 

Double post here. It's too messy otherwise...

I couldn't agree more!

Wow. Yes. It's a pleasure reading your posts!

In my view, it's the most and the least -- often at the same time.

Well, thank you. That's very kind of you.