PT The notion that "Nothing important happens in TPM"

I would suggest reading Mike Klimo's Star Wars Ring Theory in order to gain an appreciation for the difference between artistry and fan service.

Your point is well taken.

 

If you weren't suggesting that it was my point, then you're just pulling a classic red herring (distracting from my point by bringing up a totally unrelated point. It's a way people avoid questions they don't like the answer to). Weak argumentation from someone who is trying to pretend like a move people generally feel medium to "yeah it's good, but nothing special" on, is in the same discussion as some of the most adored films of all time.

What the IMDB score shows is that the largest percentage of that website's users thought TPM was above average, less than a third hated it, and significantly more loved it. But as I previously stated, I don't place a great deal of stock in IMDB anyway since it is a website largely used by film buffs and wannabe movie critics and the general population are neither of those things.[/quote]

Again, giving a movie a 6/10 or 7/10 means you didn't love it. Therefore, TPM is not generally loved. The fact that you suggest IMDB is mostly used by film critics (when all one has to do one the website is click a button) and then suggest Amazon is better measure (where you actually have to WRITE A REVIEW) is hilarious. The mere fact that the film has been rated by 50,000 people on IMDB while it's been rated by 3,000 on Amazon shows that IMDB is a general measure. And everyone I know uses IMDB to get info and opinions on films, not just film snobs. It's a massively popular website.

4/5 is 80%, which isn't excellent by any measure other than one of a person who wants to make a movie seem more popular than it is. The issue I have with Amazon, is often the reviews are of the product itself (i.e. a specific blue ray or dvd edition) and do not always reflect one's opinion of the film itself. On the other hand, other people rate it based on their opinion of the film itself only, but ultimately it's more of a mixed bag. So you can tap dance around all you want, but there's no debate here, most people do not love TPM.

This is a different statement and even within the statement, you are conflating two different meanings of the word "successful". Successful with regards to making money and successful with regards to giving the audience a film they enjoyed. In the former sense, it is undebatable that the film was successful. The later sense is certainly debatable.

This is from the same guy who quoted a Rodger Ebert review from the week TPM came out as if it were the bible? What a sophist. And for the record, it will keep going down and down in popularity.

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Yeah requesting for anyone to prove that any film is objectively good or bad is just stupid, because it is not possible. A film is a work of art and entertainment which appeals to our senses, emotions, and thoughts, to tell a story and to resonate with us in one way or another. There is no "objective" way to measure these things since they fundamentally rely on subjective dimensions of our experience.​

I can objectively tell you how long a movie is or what kind of film was used or what locations it was recorded at. Sometimes, one can objectively tell you what the director or an actor had in mind for a certain scene or character. However, there is no objective way to judge a good acting performance, because it is open to interpretation; nor is there an objective way to judge a script, or plot development or anything else related to the film. So if that's what you want, come back to me when you find the scientific measure by which "goodness" is measured within art. Otherwise you're just asking a nonsense question, which is just a waste of time.​

 

I'll agree that TPM doesn't have any blatant directly affecting events for the galaxy as a whole, but it sets the stage for lots of things that are to come, which we see later. TFA is very similar to this in a way actually-mainly serving to "set the stage," as it were.

I think that's fine. Seeing what we see in TPM helps enrich the background and reasons for what we see later-and I believe this was GL's intention all along. Was it the safest/wisest approach for a film that had such high expectations, directly following the OT? Perhaps not. But for the saga as a whole IMO it was exactly what it needed to be.

 

A red herring? LMAO It's called adding to the discussion.

Look, this began with you responding to my remark that the prequels are loved all over the world. You responded to that by stating that the films are not "generally loved". But that wasn't my claim or my point. So does that mean I should now state that you "pulled a classic red herring?" LOL Seriously, you're hilarious and hypocritical.

And for the record, I never said or even suggested that TPM was loved as much as TESB or whatever films you're referring to when you talk about "some of the most adored films of all time". You're making stuff up to suit your agenda. What I said was that TPM is loved all over the world and loved more than hated. Both true facts.

And again, when you click on the IMDB button for reviewers that "hated it" you get 1140. When you click for reviewers who "loved it" you get 1610. Which means that according to IMDB there were 470 more reviewers who loved it than hated it.

Which is was not my claim or my point. You and your "red herrings"...

LOL

I never said that. You need to read more carefully or stop making stuff up.

Well, you know, I was really talking about people who cared enough to write a review. You can't learn a great deal about what someone thinks when all they did was click a button. But still, if we are also talking about the folks who simply clicked a number, then by a conisderable margin the biggest number of clickers gave TPM 7/10 which is an above average score and surely means those people enjoyed the movie (even if they didn't love it). Of course we can't be sure exactly how they felt because they didn't write a review.

A general measure of what film buffs and wannabe critics think, yes. And they enjoyed it more than not.

And yet I personally only know one person who uses IMDB. I sincerely doubt that most of the people I work with have even heard of IMDB but I KNOW they've heard of, and use, amazon. So I stand by amazon as representing the broader cross section of the general public.

What are you talking about? Where did you get those numbers from? I said that the 4 and 5 star reviews added together comprised 60% of the total umber of reviews. Which they do.

I have no interest in, or any need to, make the TPM "seem more popular than it is". It has millions of fans all over the world. That's pretty popular by any standard. Does it have a large - but smaller - number of haters too? Undoubtedly.

And there you go misrepresenting my argument again. Because I never said that "most people love TPM". Why don't you try dealing with what I actually said instead of making stuff up? What I said was that more people loved it than hated it and that more people enjoyed it to one degree or another than didn't, which all surveys show to be the case - including IMDB.

No, it's not a different statement at all. That's been my point all along.

I'm not conflating anything. I'm saying the film was successful on both levels; which it was. More people enjoyed TPM than didn't and it made a lot of money. That's a success on both counts.

Only in your head. The facts are clear in reality.

I didn't quote it as if it were "the bible", that's just silly. I quoted it to show that professional film critics do not share your ludicrous view that TPM was "horribly made". In any case, I'm really struggling to see what this has to do with the fact that TESB was re-evaluated years after its release?

Oh, so now you're clairvoyant, huh? Good for you.

Translated: You have no idea how to objectively assess a film.

That's fine. You can take a class that'll teach you how to do that if you want to. I happen to be friends with Joseph McBride (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McBride_(writer)) maybe I'll get some pointers for you.

Until then you could try qualifying your remarks with "in my opinion" instead of acting like what you say is inarguable fact.

 

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

I love how everyone looks so patronising to Vader in that video, especially Tarkin.

 

I'm a pilot you know

 

No. When you quote someone and then talk about something else with no transition, it's called a red herring.

Nope, because I directly responded to your point and THEN introduced my point which was separate but related. That's conversation 101.

I never said that. You need to read more carefully or stop making stuff up.[/quote]

And I quote you: "On IMDB (a website that IMHO doesn't really refelct the opinion of the general public since it's mainly used by film buffs and wannabe movie critics) TPM has 3569 reviews. Of those, 1140 are from reviewers who "hated it" and 1610 are from those who "loved it"."

LMAO. You don't even know what you yourself said. Well that's about all the time I can waste on this, but I do have one other point to make: the idea that there is such a thing as "objective film criticism" is just laughable. It doesn't exist and will never exist. Art cannot be judged objectively and I don't care how many film degrees someone has. Is there a difference between an informed opinion and an uninformed or weakly informed opinion? Of course. However, all views are still fundamentally subjective.

The fact that the best you can come up with is a link to a wikipedia page shows how clueless you are on this. Unless you can explain what it means to be "an objective film critic" you're just spewing nonsense.

 

It's not that nothing of importance happens in TPM but it's just that nothing much happens. There was too much filler.

I think had Anakin been cast at 12 -14 years old for TPM with the plan to have the same actor reprise the role through to his teens /late teens, it may have been a different kind of movie.

I think for a lot of people TPM should have starred an older Anakin.
Also, I am often quick to point out that TPM's premise of using a trade dispute as a pretext for war is precisely the same gameplan Putin used in Ukraine against a helpless state Ukraine/Naboo and all the political machinations around it was quite interesting.

Critics who belittle that premise should be reminded of this everytime they attempt to use that as a serious criticism. TPM had many shortcomings, but that particular plot detail was fine.
The execution however was an issue. I can see a much better Star Wars film being done with same said trade dispute as a backdrop had George switched out the trade federation with the Separatists (already fully formed as a political entity in TPM) beseiging Naboo forcing Queen Amidala to sign a treaty with it and leave the Republic. And use that to press home the point that the Republic is weak and ineffectual and set-up Palpatine's play to become Chancellor, appealing to 'nationalism' of the people in Coruscant. This even works with the open scroll about the Galaxy being in 'turmoil' without taking anything away, aside from any mention of taxation of trade routes.

Just a few minor tweaks here and there. The broad ideas in the PT are actually really good.

 

This is too funny.

I rarely meet people as amusingly self-righteous as you. In fact, I never do in real life; only on the internet. Isn't that curious? Anyway...

I said that George Lucas's 6 Star Wars movies are loved all over the world and you admitted this was the case but then attempted to steer the conversation onto something you clearly felt more comfortable with, intoducing the vague notion that the prequels are not "generally" loved. But that was not my point, nor did I have any desire to discuss such an ill-defined assertion. So instead of letting you change the subject, I attempted to show how the statistics you cited actually re-enforced my original point about the films being loved all over the world. That's when you claimed that what I was saying was "totally unrelated" and invented this silliness about "red herrings" PMSL

You can point and wag your finger as much as you like, screaming about imaginary "red herrings" until you are blue in the face, I really couldn't give a flying fudge. All that matters to me is whether or not the points I made are accurate. And guess what? They are.

All six of George Lucas's Star Wars films are loved all over the world.

More people loved TPM than hated it.

More people enjoyed TPM than didn't.

TPM was a successful movie that made a buttload of money.

Those are facts and, no matter how much you huff and puff, they will always be facts. And your opinion that TPM was "horribly made" will always be a minority one.

I know exactly what I said, you're just having trouble understanding what was written again. Your claim that I had suggested "IMDB is mostly used by film critics" is disproven by the very passage you quoted in which I actually used the words "film buffs and wannabe movie critics". So you got two words right you just missed out the ones in the middle that changed the context! Neither "film buffs" nor "wannabe movie critics" are actual film critics.

What utter silliness.

All you're doing is showing how ignorant and uneducated you are when it comes to art. Of course films and other art forms can be objectively evaluated. If that wasn't the case we could all just draw pages and pages of stick figures and gain ourselves art degrees! LOL

Hey, maybe you should give that a go. Let me know how you get on, m'kay?

Until then, ciao.

 

I think that my signature says it all.

 

A million, billion likes, if I could!!!

Oh, maaaaaaaaaaaaan (or, I suppose, oh, boy).

These Star Wars-YouTube masher-up-er thingy-ma-bobs are getting better and better.

That was a surreal experience. I genuinely was laughing out loud in a few places.

It also beautifully underlines the fact that the Star Wars saga is one wonderfully weird-ass enterprise.

Never the twain shall meet (except when they do). Fantastic!

My respect for the space oddity that is George Lucas grows. The highly incongruous melding -- welding? -- of TPM with ANH, in that video, is just glorious.

I even gained a new appreciation for TPM. You realize that everything about that movie shouldn't be. But it is. And that is its essential beauty.

Is Vader the hallucination or is it young Anakin? Which do you hold to be truer of the universe?

Or is it the riotous superposition of the two?

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Ode on a Flash Gordon urn.

 

TPM is certainly hampered by the fact that much of it is setting up the pieces on the chess board for the rest of the saga to move forward. For one, you get a subtle look at how Palpatine manipulates both sides in order to construct a "beta" version of the Clone Wars with the Battle of Naboo. He's figuring out in this stage which weapon will be more valuable in destroying the Jedi. He thinks it's creating a droid army, but when the Gungans and humans prevail, the clone army becomes his primary option.

Most importantly, however, is that TPM quietly commences Anakin's fall to the dark side. Yes, he himself shows almost no inclinations towards anger and hatred, but his fear of losing his mother is literally telegraphed in this film. By the end of TPM, she's no longer at his side and nor is Qui-Gon, the only other character who expressed full confidence in him. While the Jedi and Obi-Wan have accepted him by obligation, Anakin has lost both parental figures and has no real support system around him, paving the way for his self doubt and confusion to play out in the next two episodes. These pieces are vital to understanding his arc throughout the prequels.