TPM a critical darling in France?

Yeah, grouping like that doesn't work. It's more split along desperately-clinging-to-childhood people (pure OT fans) and the rest of us, who have jobs. [/sarcasm]

 

Well-played, sir!

I am a forty year old man with no job sitting in my parents' basement dressed in a wizard's robe arguing about a film I saw when I was seven. [/sarcasm] You know, instead of being half that age, having seen all six films from the time I was seven to the time I was fifteen.

 

Never heard about those guys. There's a small part about the critical reaction on TPM in France in Laurent Jullier's book "Star Wars : anatomie d'une saga", but it deals mainly with mainstream newspapers and magazines.

Regarding the more intellectual critics and movie magazines, he only mentions that "Les Cahiers du Cinéma"'s review of the film is rather negative, while "Positif" liked some aspects and was positive about it. I made a quick search on the Internet to find Berthomieu's review, but couldn't.

Just forward it to me, and I'll try to translate it as accurately as possible (I'm French), or at least to give you a good idea on why he appreciates the film.

 

The "Positif" review seems to have been Berthomieu's.

Here's something I found which is kind of like a French Rottentomatoes.com (though there are a couple of translated American reviews mixed in with it) - the reviews in it seem to be more positive than the American ones, but not by a huge amount. However, the PvsGL guy mentioned French scholars specifically, and not critics per se.

http://www.allocine.fr/film/revuedepresse_gen_cfilm=20754.html

I can't find the entire Berthomieu review anymore either - it formerly came up with a search of his name and the name of the movie together, but now it seems to have been taken down.

Thanks for your help!

 

The link to Berthomieu's review in Positf is broken. I couldn't find it anywhere else on the Web.
I'll stop by the French Film Institute library to get this review, and to have a close look at Berthomieu's book "le rebelle et l'empereur", then I'll give you a report on all this.
Stay tuned.

 

I really appreciate your efforts man. This is exactly the sort of thing I was aiming for when I started the thread.

 

The thing that amazes me the most, in our travels of late, is that it?s really very hard to find anyone willing to step up and tell me that millions of fans can be wrong, and that Episode One is, in fact, a masterpiece. Anyone, that is, except for kids and French scholars.


Vive la France! At least they know a decent movie when they see one. And don't have ridiculous demands that the PT movies be nothing but remakes of of the OT movies.

Most fans would say that they wanted the PT to consist of good movies. Well, there are people who believe that they are. They don't allow themselves to be dictated by the so-called fanboys still living in the 1970s and 80s. Nor do they demand that all SW movies possess one-dimensional morality and happy endings.

 

Thank you for the kind words. Returned from the netherworld of the Force, I have.

Wooden acting, pedestrian dialogue, and an over-reliance on CGI are the three most frequently cited criticisms of the PT. Thematic issues such as morality are, for general audiences, secondary to the prickly sense of anticipation - the prospect of ebullience and wonder - that defines the most gloriously entertaining popular epics.

 

Wooden acting, pedestrian dialogue, and an over-reliance on CGI are the three most frequently cited criticisms of the PT. Thematic issues such as morality are, for general audiences, secondary to the prickly sense of anticipation - the prospect of ebullience and wonder - that defines the most gloriously entertaining popular epics.


Wooden acting? Gee . . . I could have sworn spotting the same thing from the OT films and even the LORD OF THE RINGS movies. As much as I love Harrison Ford, he had the bad luck to spout some of the worst lines in the entire saga. And I still remember how he and Carrie Fisher literally sleepwalked their way through ROTJ.

As for the "over reliance on CGI", I don't give a damn. It didn't bother me. And I certainly didn't want Lucas to return to the old style of special effects from the old movies. Hell, I'd rather watch the Special Edition movies than the original OT films.

The reason I'm ranting? I'm getting sick and tired of the constant bashing of the PT. I'm getting sick and tired of people hiding their anger at George Lucas for exposing their true nature through the characterizations found in the PT films, and pretending that there are other reasons why they dislike the movies. I'm getting sick and tired of the old "Lucas raped my childhood" crap. And I'm getting sick and tired of the petty nitpicking that seemed to dominate the discussions about the PT. The OT movies were just as flawed as the PT. It shared some of the flaws found in the PT and also had its own share of flaws. Unfortunately, many fans continue to view the OT movies through rose-colored glasses, because its plot has a "fairy tale ending" and characters' roles as "freedom fighters" remind them of the "glory days" of the American Revolution or some other damn war that we won.

Screw it! I'm staying away from this forum for a while. I'm sure that you'll be all happy about it and it will give you a chance to insult me even further. Knock yourselves out.

 

Why do you feel the need to insult those with different opinions?

Why is it that we're supposed to accept "I like the PT" as an honest reaction to the films, but "I don't like the PT" has to have a laundry list of insulting excuses amounting to, "If you don't like the PT, there's something wrong with you"?

 

That's kind of an odd accusation. Just sayin.

 

Hi Mond !

As promised, I got my hands on Berthomieu's kind review of TPM in Positif, and here's the content. Enjoy...

"The Phantom Menace stands out by his narrative and visual qualities. It is the most adult film of the series as well. Lucas plans to tell his story totally on is own, using the attendance?s satisfaction to fulfill his own taste of epic mythology and comic. For the first time, adult heroes (Qui-Gon Jinn and Shmi Skywalker) are brought to the forefront. The first trilogy portrayed the coming of age of young late-teen heroes;the Phantom Menace makes the child (Anakin), the teen-ager (the Queen) faced with the urge of taking responsabilities, and the adults, either protectors or manipulators, interact.
The Phantom Menace achievement dwells in Lucas?s paradoxes. His film sets out a cohesive universe, where characters developped elsewhere, before or after, appear again. The shots are full of life; one action takes place at the foreground, whereas several others happen in the backgrounds, just like a narrative painting. Instead of inter-cutting to focus on each element, Lucas lets the shots flow, the visual quality operating more as a global sensation than through the details, impossible to detect at first viewing.
The style gets closer to a deepen direct realism of everyday life. The director shoots the same way as in 1977, but his vision has become larger. The movie?s big strenght is the editing, which cleverly lays the oftenly luxuriating parts of each sequence (the podrace), and then throws it in the come and goes of the general plot. It especially comes to fruition, rhythm and touches along, in the big finale editing, with the 4 alternate sequences and the overwhelming singing chorus. The opera-like vocation of Star Wars, its mastering of the popular action-packed movie?s codes are striking by then.
The syndrome of excess and speed don?t alter lots of well-executed casual moments : life on Tatooine, the desert storm, Anakin?s leaving, Shmi and Qui-Gon?s connection (the hand on the shoulder), the love between the 2 young heroes. As well as the close-ups on medidating, brooding, concerned or non-plussed faces, which give a real depth to the movie."

I'm currently reading "Le Rebelle et l'Empereur", but it is pretty hard and dull to go through and to understand fully, given how scholar and intellectual it is, but so far there is nothing dealing specifically with TPM. I'll post again if there's something relevant coming.

 

--MissPadme

 

Why do I insult others with different opinions? Because for the past several years, I have been constantly insulted whenever I post my views that seem different from the majority on this board. And I'm getting sick of it.

 

Really? You feel personally insulted if others have a negative reaction to your viewpoint specifically? Because, while no one's perfect, even the detractors have been doing their best to stay away from ad hominem attacks, which makes your "blood calls for blood" rationale in response to detraction somewhat baffling, since it was never directed at you.

Though I do find it interesting that you consider detractors a majority. Most would consider us a vocal minority of the fandom (and yes, despite our criticism, deep down we're all still Star Wars fans).

 

I can understand being vocal about a lack of release of the original original trilogy. Simply for that the point is to get something done. That is, initiate a proper release of the unaltered trilogy. I've always wondered what the point of complaining about the PT accomplishes. If I were as convinced as the vocal minority about the garbagocity of the prequels, I wouldn't be posting here, I'd be doing something... fun.

 

I apologize for the late reply - I've been away, but you have no idea how much I appreciate this my friend. Thanks!

The review is great, by the way.

 

I really would like to see your research on this. You could headline your post: Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics.

 

Hey guys, rumor has it that there are these respected critics/intellectuals in France who - get his - think the prequels are better than the originals! Pretty wild, eh? You fellas know anything about these guys?

 

They were possibly won over by the flashy, clean CGI. I mean, stereotypically with French cinema you get one of two things: deep, deep self-examination pieces that peer into the human condition and are loaded with commentary on philosophy; or you get a nice, slick action movie package designed to simply look cool. I highly doubt they think its the former, but I could be wrong. I'm not familiar with too many individual French critics.

 

This is precisely why I recommend, for English-speaking SW fans who dislike the PT, watching the PT films in Spanish or French with English subtitles. The voice performances are better, IMO, more passionate and "actorly", and the Romance languages imbues the Old Republic with an old-world flair.

 

Here in the UK, TPM got very good reviews when it was first released. I remember EMPIRE and Total Film both gave it four star reviews as did all the tabloids. As the backlash hit in the US so these publications became much more dubious about it - Now you can't even find the original reviews from EMPIRE and Total Film and all you'll find online is the much more negative, retrospective rviews... Unless you happen to have the original publications of course, which I do.

As far as AOTC goes, it wasn't badly reviewed here. It was generally regarded as a big improvement on the disasterous TPM.

Strangely ROTS, the film thats clearly the best of the PT and the film that generated the best reviews in the US, was the worst reviwed of the PT movies in the UK.

Overall, I suspect european audiances probably get the "theatrical" acting and dialouge rather better than US audiances.

 

What do you want to know ? Who exactly are those guys and their profile, or why they think the prequels are better than the originals ?

 

Hahah, with that post actually I was ribbing a couple of other posters for bringing their little slap fight into an largely unrelated thread. But anyway, what I am most interested in hearing are the "fascinating intellectual arguments" in favor of the prequels over the originals by the French intellectuals/scholars alluded to by the director of The People vs. George Lucas in his blog posting.

I was extremely disappointed in Empire Magazine when they did that. They're free to reevaluate films, of course, but they have only done this with the Star Wars prequels (they apparently haven't, for example, reevaluated the not-nearly-as-well-regarded-as-it-once-was American Beauty), which is pretty suspicious. They also did this fairly recently, too - it just seems as if they are embarrassed by their original enthusiasm and are quickly covering it up for the sake of appearing hip. They also don't mention that they have changed their reviews in the current incarnation of the reviews; they should have at least done that.

I discovered this when I rewatched AotC a year or so ago and found it much more to my liking than before (I used to consider it "the only truly bad Star Wars movie"; now I still like it the least of the 6 but appreciate and enjoy it much more). I remembered that Empire liked the film a lot and so I decided to check out their review again, only to find that they had sold out to the cool people.

Again, they are free to reevaluate films, but the fact that they have done this ONLY with the prequels is lame-o.

 

I thought the whole thing with Empire and Total Film banishing their original reviews was funny and really showed the whole "movie review" process up for the shallow nonsense that it really is.

Mind you, the other day I was reading Roger Eberts original 1967 review for The Good The Bad and the Ugly - So there are some critics that put their reviews out there and let them stand, good, bad, right or wrong.