Each of the Star Wars films takes its tonal cue from the age of its protagonist. With Luke in A New Hope a similar age to Anakin in Revenge of the Sith, the throughline from the plains of Naboo to the forests of Endor is of increasing maturity and psychological depth.
The Phantom Menace is thus the lightest and most childlike instalment of the saga. Its characters are simply drawn and often simple-minded, from the naive Viceroy to Jar Jar Binks and the Gungans. The Phantom Menace has a wide-eyed, four foot high point of view far removed from the meaty complications of the Original Trilogy. The narration of the TV Spot One Friend perfectly captures that gentle mood:
Sometimes the one that's clumsy, different or even a
little strange just might be the friend you're looking for
It is important to remember that Anakin is on the outside looking in and that our protagonist has yet to take the reins of his destiny or of the film itself.
Therefore, although the world, tonally, is filtered through Anakin's eyes, The Phantom Menace doesn't really help us identify with him narratively or emotionally. In A New Hope Luke's dreams, and the story, are propelled by the discovery of his family's charred remains. In The Phantom Menace Anakin's dreams of going with the Jedi are fuelled by a wish to escape slavery. Yet his slavery is a korma slavery, meek and mild. I understand that this is a hard subject to deal with within a film targeted at a universal audience but Anakin's successive enslavement to Watto, to Jedi rules and to the whims of the Emperor should have been one of the most powerful unifying themes of the saga. The tighter the chains, the more force needed to break out. By underplaying and understating his family's circumstances and the impact this has on his character, the potential of this angle is frittered away.
Luke left out of revenge, ambition, necessity. To all intents and purposes Anakin leaves out of boredom and curiosity. With a lack of emotional thrust, the film struggles to recover dynamism. It does, but slowly.
For all its superficial visual splendour and raw kinetic energy, watching The Phantom Menace again it is surprising how little excitement comes from the plot itself. The film simply does not work sufficiently well either as a stand-alone feature or as the first of a series. It functions only as a fourth episode, as an extended flashback. It is over-reliant on knowledge of what is going to happen to gain momentum in the here and now. It borrows from the future, a debt that compromises its integrity. The information within these films is of the sort that could have formed appendices to the Originals, much as the explanatory addenda in the back of an epic novel.
So Anakin is going to be a Jedi? So what, we could say, if we do not know what a giant leap such a small step will imply. Would I want to see the second episode, unaware of episodes IV to VI, when The Phantom Menace's cliffhanger is as underwhelming as: PEEAACE!! In reality The Phantom Menace has little cluster plots that appear and must be resolved, but no true arc - because its arc only touches down in Revenge of the Sith. Can this film stand up in a few decades time if one comes fresh to the Saga?
The very first sentence that begins the title crawl is a build-up to instant anticlimax:
Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.
George Lucas's subtlety (charting the rise of a dictatorship over seven hours) comes at the expense of instant gratification.
The original films took inspiration from many sources. The prequels do too but they take too much inspiration from the Star Wars films themselves.The Phantom Menace is creatively constrained, in-bred, sporadically resembling a holographic ghost on a digitised Star Wars stage. The narrative is perfunctory, joining too many dots to get to its pre-arranged destination. Early scenes are very short, rushed like infobites. At times it is short on ideas, even repeating the visual gag of "a bigger fish" rescuing our heroes. Suffocated by a lack of energy, the dialogue and the acting suffer.
An inherent danger and temptation of prequels is to tinker with or dissect the work for which you are, essentially, providing a foundation. It is also a danger to want to gain credit for the intelligence behind a magic trick. The most contentious of all decisions taken by George Lucas was to 'explain' the nature of The Force. Long-term admirers of the Saga may have felt as appalled as C3PO at the kind of damaging demystification that it appeared to crystallise: "My parts are showing!?" In fact Midichlorians, the symbiotic organisms that Qui-Gon says live inside of us, only explain our receptiveness to The Force, leaving the ultimate mystery just that: unsullied and immaculate. Yet I think it is a mistake to even begin to explain it, to intrude on the fringes of sacred ground. It took too long for a character to ask the questions Anakin asks but, in fantasy, an audience's ignorance is bliss.
* * *
Computer Generated Imagery is used extensively in The Phantom Menace. Hackneyed as it is to say it, it lacks weight. It's not quibbling - the significance of special effects goes far beyond mere window-dressing. Weight gives a sense of scale, one of Star Wars' great atouts. Scale is the seedbed for scope and an awareness of the importance of what is happening. Without these things in place it is harder for an audience to grab onto the world and its stories.
In past Star Wars episodes superimposition might have been inadequate and scales distorted but the elements were real. They could be touched by our minds. It isn't a matter of looking real but, in whatever way, being real - a matte painting, a miniature, a model.
There is nothing that can be imagined that cannot be presented, with effort, care and ingenuity, in front of the camera. That said, Watto's furiously flapping wings must have been a blessing on those sweltering Tunisian summers.
* * *
Star Wars has always been bloodless - cauterised wounds, Jedi vanishing into their cloaks when they die - and, aside from the cloud of red that bursts from Darth Maul's halved body, The Phantom Menace, a young person's film, may be the most anaemic of all: droids that offer no resistance and a space battle that proves to be child's play. The Phantom Menace is also blinkered to the world outside of the mission's immediate battlefield. It is difficult to imagine that "the death toll is catastrophic" as a Naboo official tells us, when the ordinary lives on the ground are either not shown or shown chiefly untouched. Where are the bodies, the ruins, the refugees? For all we know the Clone Wars of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith are no more than a firework display on Coruscant's night sky.
So little time is spent elaborating the supposed suppression suffered by the galaxy under the Emperor's rule, the sort of oppression that would warrant the outpouring of glee at the conclusion of Return of the Jedi. Our milieu is that of generals and power-brokers but it would have been better to ground the film in the compassion that is the cornerstone of Jedi teaching.
George Lucas is keen on echoing historical and political movements and revolutions but from an academic, detached point of view that borders, ironically, on the autocratic.
* * *
And yet, art appreciation is not an exact science. The Phantom Menace has things wrong with it. It could have been better. I love watching it. There is no but in between. I love R2D2's beeps. I love the revelation of Padme's identity to Boss Nass (she is a handmaiden in a Queen's outfit, not the other way around). I love the glorious Gaudi Art Nouveau of the Gunga City's pearl-like world. I love the exquisite Renaissance domes of Theed. I love the Hindu inspired statues half-buried in the undergrowth. I love that the aural text is so evocative that it can stand in for the whole world. I love the eye-popping delectable miasma of speed and colour. I love the droid army's approach over the crest of a hill under a blue cloud-flecked sky, growling with corruptive power, resuscitating Kurosawa's Ran. I love how the light sprinkles over the Lucasfilm logo. I love the architecture of the lightsaber battle, the red force fields, the low hums, the black gleaming amphitheatre and its pupil's abyss. I love how the humblest are exalted and how humbling oneself leads to salvation. I love how Padme, and Natalie Portman, feels so perfectly like Luke and Leia's mother. I love the podrace, even if it goes on too long. I love the pause for breath and for silence once the crawl has faded away. I love the details and the thrill that has gone into its making, that there is not a corner of the canvas unmarked. I love Darth Maul's unexpected, extraordinary entrance, unveiled behind a blast door curtain, evil daubed on his face. I love how droids are unloaded as foetal Airfix kits. I love how the worldly-wise Qui-Gon Jinn is so willing to use his powers to con Watto. I love the sun-baked shades of sand and rock on Tatooine. And yes, I love The Phantom Menace because it enriches its ancestor offspring.
Regardless of everything, even in the weakest moments of the film when I see that the band is not playing, I can still hear the music.
I've been wearing the sandwich board for you guys ever since I found your blog a few weeks ago, and this piece strengthens my resolve. (COMS is on my blog roll, at Unexamined Essentials.)
ReplyDeleteMore often than not, it seems like nobody really "sees" a film quite like those who are devoted to it, and, not coincidentally, no one is as qualified to critique it, either. The rule in traditional film criticism - produced for the mass market but also reproduced in smaller scale on lots of blogs and discussion boards, is that if a writer identified more liabilities in a film than assets, s/he wrote a "pan." Along the lines of, "This film is bad because x, y, z." That's tradition.
What I like about the work done here is that you have no qualms in pointing out a film's problems, but do so only as one facet of the overall experience, in proportion to whatever else the film may have to offer. And, as I've been saying for some time now, the prequel trilogy has quite a lot to offer that's good.
Thank you very much, Jaime.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you like what I'm doing here and honoured that you would "beat the drum" on my behalf.
I completely agree with what you say in terms of reviews that are considered like balance sheets with a result totted up at the end.
"More often than not, it seems like nobody really "sees" a film quite like those who are devoted to it, and, not coincidentally, no one is as qualified to critique it, either."
Yes, I think you're right. The prequels are really enjoyable and with no little depth (I wrote a long piece on Revenge of the Sith when I saw how much there was to it).
Excellent piece, Stephen. You make quite a lot of interesting comments here that point out the weaknesses in the film that, while relatively minor in scale, threaten to sabotage the whole enterprise for less accepting minds. They're the spindly, undergrown trees whose uglines makes people miss the majesty of the whole forest in general, and even a few of those half-grown evergreens can at times have the same kind of authentic charm as the pathetic little runt of a Christmas tree that Charlie Brown took home.
ReplyDeleteLately, I've come to the conclusion that TPM might just be my favorite of the SW series, although ANH might still stand as the best film overall. I love all the visual splendor and pageantry in Episode I, all of the decorative elements that contrast so sharply with the minimalist decor of the Empire. I love how the storyline is dedicated to a silly dispute over taxes, a root cause of a lot of warfare (and indeed, something to worry about here in the US as Tea Party activists whine about the end of the Bush tax cuts), and how the script is really written with a whole lot of political doublespeak. I could go on and on (and have before), but it's good to see a somewhat sharper take on the film, even if I love it so much. Sometimes a beloved favorite needs to be bled a little in order to strengthen for further viewings-- a lesson learned from your bold "Citizen Kane" piece.
"Excellent piece, Stephen. You make quite a lot of interesting comments here that point out the weaknesses in the film that, while relatively minor in scale, threaten to sabotage the whole enterprise for less accepting minds."
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot, Bob. I had hoped, if you read it, that you would appreciate where I was coming from.
"Sometimes a beloved favorite needs to be bled a little in order to strengthen for further viewings-- a lesson learned from your bold "Citizen Kane" piece."
That's a nice image. It's good to test the strength now and again of what you like.
I'd say my favourite is probably EMPIRE STRIKES BACK or REVENGE OF THE SITH but, of course, the others are very good too and essential to the whole story. You can't really take your favourites out of context.
Bob,
ReplyDelete"Sometimes the one that's clumsy, different or even a
little strange just might be the friend you're looking for"
I just realised what a good description (from the TV Spot) this is of the film itself and my reaction to it.
Phew, what a detailed piece! I read the post in parts since I've not seen the film. But this sure looks like one essential essay on the film...
ReplyDeleteCheers!
My pleasure, JAFB.
ReplyDelete"But this sure looks like one essential essay on the film..."
Maybe you'll change your mind once you've seen the film(!)
JAFB, I've got my own essay on the film here, as well: http://www.theaspectratio.net/phantommenace.htm
ReplyDeleteI'll also have another one coming up at Wonders in a couple of weeks or months. Perhaps these will change some minds, too. The only other wildly imperfect movie I love this much would have to be "Heaven's Gate".
Bob,
ReplyDeleteI haven't been able to leave a comment at theaspectratio so I'll leave it here...
Your The Phantom Menace post is excellent and complete too(!) You make very many good points and always with clear common sense.
I like that you picked out Pernilla August (I didn't know about the Bergman association) for special praise and this interesting observation here:
"They may lack the emotional maturity that most adults require to take seriously, but all evidence to the contrary aside, adults are never the intended audience for superhero stories. It’s why many superhero stories, direct or otherwise, highlight adventures and tragedies suffered by heroes in their formative years."
Thanks, Stephen. August was certainly one of the several performers who delivered a faultless performance (alongside Neeson, McGreggor, especially McDiarmid) which always makes me question the quibbles about acting in the Prequels. So Portman, Lloyd and Christensen aren't perfect-- neither were Fischer or Hamil, when you get right down to it. Ford was strong because he knew how to adlib well (perhaps Lucas could've encouraged his actors to improv a little more). The best actors of the OT tended to be the villains anyway (James Earl Jones, Peter Cushing, McDiarmid again) which is mostly followed in the PT (Christopher Lee and Temurra Morrison are fun as hell). I will admit that there's nobody as cool as Lando in the newer movies, but it's hard to top Billy Dee-- he might've been the one non-British actor who knew how to deliver Lucas' wooden dialogue and make it sound not only natural, but smooth as silk.
ReplyDeleteAs for Superheroes-- To me, they're just as essential a piece of distinctly American mythology as Westerns or Film-Noirs. To an extent, I'd even say that they're a more important kind of urban fairy-tale than the film-noir is, since that genre was heavily indebted to German expressionism, while characters like Superman, Batman and Spider-Man are distinctly American (then again, the genre may owe something to European supervillains like Fantomas and Dr. Mabuse). I'm tempted to call the space-opera an American invention thanks to Edgar Rice Burroughs and Alex Raymond, but space is big enough for everyone.
I know I said that the acting suffers, but Neeson and August are pretty good. I think McGregor's performance is too toned down / wooden, and lacks any real pep until the final lightsaber duel.
ReplyDeleteIan McDiarmid, though, does the best here. I thought he was brilliant in Revenge of the Sith, showing his Shakespearean credentials with the Iago-like Palpatine. I think it's the best performance of the Saga, though Harrison Ford is very good, as is the ever-reliable R2D2.
Absolutely on McDiarmid. A while ago I checked out the Trevor Nunn television production of the Scottish Play, mostly for Ian McKellan and Judi Dench, only to be very pleasantly surprised by the appearance of McDiarmid, who definitely appeared to enjoy his role (especially whenever he got to say "equivocate"). As for the droids, Artoo's great, but Anthony Daniels is forever a dear part of my childhood as Threepio. I'm also glad he continues to play the role in all the various "Star Wars" cartoons.
ReplyDeleteBob,
ReplyDeleteI don't have any special affinity to C3PO. It was always about the big three - Luke, Leia, Han - for me when I was young.
R2D2's curiosity (and mishcief) was more interesting than C3PO's more whingeing nature - the tussle on Dagobah between Yoda and R2D2 over the little torch is one of my favourite moments.
I thought you couldn't say M*****h (!) if you were an actor or a stagehand. I didn't know it applied to everyone - we're all doomed.
Judi Dench is probably the best Actress we have here in Britain.
Artoo's great in the films. Threepio was always special to me because to an extent he had a reach beyond the films-- I grew up not only with the movies on VHS and television, but also with these little storybooks of each one with a small tape-cassette in which the story was narrated by Anthony Daniels as Threepio. I think I can honestly say that "Star Wars", both in books and on film, helped me learn to read at an early age. I will say, the one major drawback that has always bothered me about TPM and continues to bother me to this day is how Anakin leaves Threepio behind.
ReplyDeleteAs for the big three-- oddly, Lando was always a very comforting figure to me as a young child. For some reason I always forgot about the fact that he betrayed Han, but remembered how he saves Luke and helped him rescue Han. Maybe it's because I didn't actually own ESB on VHS until I was about ten, so I watched it a little infrequently compared to the other two. Leia and Han were cool, but I only really latched onto Luke, which I think is natural. The PT doesn't quite have that strong an audience-surrogate figure, but it's more of an ensemble piece, so that's okay (I'd argue that Qui-Gon is the true center of TPM, and maybe the strongest drawn character since the OT).
As for the Scottish Play-- just an old habit, as I come from a theater family. And don't worry, all you need to do is say "Angels and ministers of grace defend us", and we'll all be fine. Keep talking about being doomed, and you'll start sounding like Threepio yourself!
Interesting what you say about comforting figures. There were certain characters (generally women) in films and on TV that would make me feel safe and warm and at home when I was young. I'll try to remember a couple. Not just characters either, but TV presenters too.
ReplyDeleteAnakin leaves C3PO for his mother, doesn't he? He made him for her. If you mean it's a drawback because he would have livened up the film, I'm not so sure.
"PT doesn't quite have that strong an audience-surrogate figure, but it's more of an ensemble piece"
Yes, that's what I was trying to say in my piece. I did appreciate the quieter scenes between Qui-Gon and Shmi. More of those would have been good.
"As for the Scottish Play-- just an old habit, as I come from a theater family."
Oh, I see.
This is a great article but there is much that I wish to rebuke.
ReplyDelete[I understand that this is a hard subject to deal with within a film targeted at a universal audience but Anakin's successive enslavement to Watto, to Jedi rules and to the whims of the Emperor should have been one of the most powerful unifying themes of the saga.
Luke left out of revenge, ambition, necessity. To all intents and purposes Anakin leaves out of boredom and curiosity. With a lack of emotional thrust, the film struggles to recover dynamism. It does, but slowly.]
Anakin has basic feelings of “little boy” sadness concerning the separation from his mother and some awkward moments as the object of suspicion before the Jedi Council. Yet, for the most part, both his experiences and his motivation throughout the film are, as you’ve observed, the stuff of whimsy and curiosity. For his character The Phantom Menace is basically a giant sand box where the consequences of his choosing to leave with Qui Gon–the totality of his involvement in larger, galactic affairs–seems overshadowed by the rambunctious wide-eyed immediacy of piloting pod racers, Noobian starfighters, making new friends akin to his own sense of wonderment, tagging along with important grownups and seeing whole new worlds for the first time. In short, Anakin’s one and only real conflict thus far (his mother) is more instinctual and subconscious, whereas a mature realization of his padawan path is virtually non-existent. Yet you must understand that all of this is key to both his character and to the certain naïve tone of the film that relates to its youngest audience members.
Anakin has multiple victories in The Phantom Menace but no real epiphanies à la Luke training with his saber or channeling the Force to blow up the Death Star. His pod race win was purely latent skill; destroying the droid control ship, as much accidental. He is taken from a back-world planet to the capital center of the galaxy where his potential to become a great Jedi is more a presumption than something to learn and earn on his own. This is precisely what leads to Anakin’s state of hubris and unjustified sense of entitlement when we meet up with him in Episode II. You said yourself that each of the films takes a tonal cue from its protagonist, but there must also be a thematic logic as well, to which The Phantom Menace adheres properly. Had Anakin’s journey began heavy-handedly, with a more tragic emphasis on the slavery, then it would have better shaped his character with a solemn sense of purpose primary to just going on an adventure and seeing the stars, thus undermining the very theme of his extreme naiveté; remember: Luke ends up on the light side of the Force, and for systematic reasons. As it stands, Anakin goes into Episode II and so-fourth with a degree of arrested development necessary to cause further damage and descent, thus telling his story the way it needs to be told. If this means older audiences aren’t going to connect as strongly with his origins and carefree childlike view, well, so be it. Personally, I’d much rather the story be thematically sound than merely empathetic.
Continued from above…
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I think little Ani is plenty engaging precisely because he’s just a happy little kid and not some weighted down, histrionic, Haley Joel Osment type character. And it’s why I think Lucas actually did right by casting Jake Lloyd. Sure, some of his line reading was amateurishly clunky (something that never bothered me in a Star Wars movie anyhow) but so much more of his screen presence felt almost documentric, like an all-American prepubescent archetype.
[For all its superficial visual splendour and raw kinetic energy, watching The Phantom Menace again it is surprising how little excitement comes from the plot itself. The film simply does not work sufficiently well either as a stand-alone feature or as the first of a series.]
The Phantom Menace technically and clearly establishes a number of larger conflicts that drive the two Jedi heroes, Queen Amidala and, to a lesser extent, Anakin, Jar Jar and R2D2 into action. The question is whether or not these conflicts and events feel as significant as all that follow in the five subsequent installments. I would say no, for the most part, yet this alone doesn’t automatically mean that the material is not exciting enough as a stand-alone narrative. You say otherwise but I’d argue that this is due to misplaced relativity – you’re making a negative comparison between this film and its sequels. You’re paralleling The Phantom Menace along side any one of the other films and noting how its dramatic peaks are perhaps not as high. This doesn’t make any sense because what you’re doing is disregarding the context of the whole. On one hand, no one Star Wars movie was ever intended to be viewed as a film all to itself; on the other hand, if The Phantom Menace were the only Star Wars film than there would be no other to compare it to, thereby rendering such criticisms moot. Star Wars is designed as a single, continuous, serialized saga with a beginning and end. When reading a novel, how often do you disregard the first chapter or bulk of chapters for not being as exciting as the chapters that follow? More specific to the subject, how often to do you disregard the first movement of a symphony for simmering when the following movements rise and crescendo?
[The information within these films is of the sort that could have formed appendices to the Originals, much as the explanatory addenda in the back of an epic novel.]
Can the same not be said of any Star Wars prequel or sequel? Movies aren’t about information, they’re about experience. I can see how The Phantom Menace might be the most challenging installment of the saga, as it is the least tumultuous, or because the events that do transpire are concluded dryly or with the shallowest of celebration. Yet this, in turn, is what gives The Phantom Menace a subversive quality, even epitomizing its very title. Lucas did not force the story into ungainly areas or to unnecessary heights for stock dramatic effect but, instead, left the drama subject to the limits of the narrative, which is fittingly didactic. The characters are no less driven by the plot and the narrative no less plot oriented than any of the other films; and the plot itself is not perfunctory, but preliminary. The real value, however, are the deeper themes, loftier ideas and overall moods that Lucas expresses throughout this narrative–on a visual, aural, musical and tonal level; with certain character gestures, double entendre dialogue and even whole scenes of adianoeta–rendering an elongated phrase or impression that when viewed as a film, and not just cliff noted, is an experience both unique and vital to the long-term arc of the saga. The Phantom Menace has its own special introductory quality, free from ominous things to come, that plays like an exploratorium of bright pageantry color schemes, underwater cities and spiraling senate chambers.
Continued from above…
ReplyDelete[In fact Midichlorians, the symbiotic organisms that Qui-Gon says live inside of us, only explain our receptiveness to The Force, leaving the ultimate mystery just that: unsullied and immaculate. Yet I think it is a mistake to even begin to explain it, to intrude on the fringes of sacred ground.]
I want to shoot down this “sacred ground” reference as quickly as possible, because it’s the kind of rhetoric that snowballs into people actually treating OT stuff like some sort of quasi-religion. They’re just movies, and the very act watching them with an open mind is what treated audiences to cool ideas like The Force in the first place. Why stop there? Why embrace one idea and not another? Time? Territorial nostalgia? Midichlorians demystify The Force no more than The Theory of Evolution demystifies Life; au contraire, it is more food for thought, not less. Midichlorians were never intended to inform audiences of the facts, but to add a perspective thematically crucial to the ongoing story. The most initial theme is that of symbioses which is projected throughout the entire film: the “symbiant circle” between the Gungans and the surface dwellers of Naboo, the Queen existing in two separate but integral forms, the unison of our two main Jedi as padawan and mentor (one of many justifications for Qui Gon’s inclusion) and how Darth Maul breaks it to his tactical advantage; also, the way Anakin must reengage his twin pod racer engines in order to beat Sebulba and even little throw-away gags like a skeletal C-3PO requiring both eye plugs to see. It establishes the general idea of working relationships and how the splitting of such, on levels both galactic and personal, seedily gives rise to the Empire.
Furthermore, there is the issue of how Midichlorians actually serve the larger narrative. Imagine if their had been no mention of them in Episode I, or at all, then imagine how the opera house scene in Revenge of the Sith would have played, where Palpatine first provides Anakin with an incentive for exploring the Dark Side. The very idea of a Sith influencing Midichlorians to create or prolong life, or to “cheat death”, is what allows the audience to better understand what is happening; instead of just telling Anakin that he can save Padme by using some vague, out-of-nowhere, tacked-on “Dark Side powers”. By establishing Midichlorians in Episode I, Lucas lays the groundwork and uses The Force as a more careful, credible and insightful storytelling device in Episode III. It really cuts to the core of how the Dark Side is unnatural in a way direct and comprehensive for the viewer.
Continued from above…
ReplyDelete[The Phantom Menace is also blinkered to the world outside of the mission's immediate battlefield. It is difficult to imagine that "the death toll is catastrophic" as a Naboo official tells us, when the ordinary lives on the ground are either not shown or shown chiefly untouched. Where are the bodies, the ruins, the refugees? For all we know the Clone Wars of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith are no more than a firework display on Coruscant's night sky.
So little time is spent elaborating the supposed suppression suffered by the galaxy under the Emperor's rule, the sort of oppression that would warrant the outpouring of glee at the conclusion of Return of the Jedi. Our milieu is that of generals and power-brokers but it would have been better to ground the film in the compassion that is the cornerstone of Jedi teaching.]
I can’t be sure; are you criticizing the entire saga for this or just The Phantom Menace? If the latter then all I can say is that such is nothing new for a Star Wars movie. In A New Hope the most we’re ever shown of Alderaan is a distant, near-objective planetoid. We never see its inhabitants; we never even touch down on the surface. Even Leia’s reaction to the total destruction (of her home world, no less) is, for lack of a better word, understated, and ultimately capped-off with a rather dismissive “We have no time for sorrows, Commander.” For that matter, when, at any point in the original trilogy, do we ever really experience vicariously the oppression of the Empire? The only victims shown are its attackers. Narratively, the Star Wars movies can never be anything more than the episodic, B-serials to which they aspire. This means that the full ramifications of triumph and tragedy amidst a fantasy universe must remain implied while the story focuses on its key players. But this brings up a larger point anyhow: George Lucas is not, nor has ever been, a sentimentalist (compare Ben Kenobi’s death to Gandalf’s). He’s an academic and an editor first and foremost.
Actually, Lucas is an editor above all, and while this certainly accounts for the economic, plot driven nature of his Star Wars films, there’s an even deeper truth in the way the emotional content (and I stress the difference between emotion and sentimentalism, the former of which Star Wars is abounded) is expressed less conventionally–by literal means through acting and method drama–and more editorially through the design, arrangement and streamic flow of image, sound and music, including the actors faces which are often treated more as monolithic tonal instruments. So I would contend that Lucas is detached on one level but very much in-tuned on another, one that is more purely cinematic. The emotion is there, holistically, through impetus, and is very powerful. And The Phantom Menace is the mild(er), happily unassuming and deceptively coy brewing stage for the larger emotional arc.
Continued from above…
ReplyDelete[In past Star Wars episodes superimposition might have been inadequate and scales distorted but the elements were real. They could be touched by our minds. It isn't a matter of looking real but, in whatever way, being real - a matte painting, a miniature, a model.
There is nothing that can be imagined that cannot be presented, with effort, care and ingenuity, in front of the camera. That said, Watto's furiously flapping wings must have been a blessing on those sweltering Tunisian summers.]
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Sin City, 300, Alice in Wonderland – these films employ purely digitized environments. The very first object we see in The Phantom Menace is a model. The Trade Federation Droid Control Ship, landing crafts, tanks and droid deployment MTTs; the Noobian starfighters, royal cruiser and the pod racers; the Mos Espa arena, Coruscant and Theed. Everything mentioned was achieved primarily with scaled miniatures, models and digitally scanned mattes. So, naturally, I’m rather perplexed with your observation, and it further brings into question a possible placebo factor. I’m certainly not discounting the presence of CGI, which is actually more prominent in the following episodes. But even then I think all three are underappreciated and downright misidentified. People seem to think that blue/greenscreen is synonymous with being purely CGI. These films don’t work that way. Yes, there is more processing in the prequels than the original trilogy, but the components that make up those processed shots are, what I consider to be, a healthy amalgamation of varying visual effects techniques, not to mention 2nd unit location photography taken from all over the globe.
The degree of practical effects work is extensive to say the least: the speeder chase through the Coruscant skyline, Obi Wan flying over a predawn Geonosis with bulbous droid ships snuggled into the ground, the Geonosian coliseum, the Utapau sink-hole city, Obi Wan’s pursuit of Grievous through an elaborate miniature set–reminiscent of the mine cart chase from Temple of Doom–the lava rivers on Mustafar and even little bits like a collapsing airport control tower and a plethora of live action sparks, pyrotechnics and debris integrated throughout. The Prequels aren’t perfect looking. A number of CG images are notably more disconnecting than the rest, like the scene with Obi Wan, Mace and Yoda walking and talking down the halls of the Jedi Temple in Episode II. Yet I think the same process was applied beautifully in the scene where Obi Wan converses with Lama Su, and the rushing Tatooine landscape generated for the pod race (which doesn’t include the caves) is as photo-geographically convincing now as it was then, 11 years ago. The scene where Padme runs the droid factory gauntlet is entirely digital but transfers amazingly well, is lively, dynamic and exciting.
Continued from above…
ReplyDeleteI’m all for CGI. While handmade modeled effects have the advantage of tactility, the said sensation of touching with our minds only reminds me that I’m touching a model, a toy. This doesn’t bother me because my mind is willing to believe such things as whatever they’re intended to be within the story, as long as the story is good and of good telling, of course. But I put little value in the effects for actually being there, because there is no actual “there”. I’ve long since argued that special effects, like the whole of a film, are not about reality, but realization. It’s not about making the unreal real (including using real elements), but making the unreal visually comprehensive. We the audience are not seeing real space, but a flat two-dimensional screen, which equals the playing field. Regardless of their nature, all effects are mere images that only exist behind the magic looking glass. The only genuine difference between CGI and traditional effects is a trade-off from one suspension of disbelief to another, which, ultimately, is the same difference.
[There is nothing that can be imagined that cannot be presented, with effort, care and ingenuity, in front of the camera.]
But this doesn’t always guarantee that the image will look as good. More importantly, the very idea of ingenuity is to venture new methods and new ways around old obstacles, which CGI perfectly exemplifies by exceeding the limitations of photo-processed effects. For it has the advantage to be fully animate and articulate beyond the confines of mechanical crudeness and restrictive framing/editing. Why insist that Watto be mechanized or muppeted when another more fully nuances and expressive form is possible? It sounds like your forcing the freedoms of filmmaking into a single subjective principle. Not to oversimplify your opinion alone, but I think the general rant against CGI is just plain nit-picking. If you could show The Phantom Menace to audiences from 1977, 1980 or 1983, I seriously doubt you’d be hearing such abstract, over-intellectualized criticisms concerning weight sensory and the impression of realism. A more likely response would be fanatical, orgasmic appraisal …or people accusing Lucas and Co. of witchcraft. Awesome looking witchcraft. This leads me to believe that such criticism are, by-and-large, relative and perhaps the product of an oversaturated, even spoiled, modern audience.
Well, that about does it. I hope I didn’t come across to hostile or insulting. That wasn’t my intention. After reading your articles on the other Star Wars films, you view is one of the few I respect. It’s the only reason I even chose to respond in the first place. Thanks for reading.
"This is precisely what leads to Anakin’s state of hubris and unjustified sense of entitlement when we meet up with him in Episode II...Had Anakin’s journey began heavy-handedly, with a more tragic emphasis on the slavery, then it would have better shaped his character with a solemn sense of purpose primary to just going on an adventure and seeing the stars, thus undermining the very theme of his extreme naiveté"
ReplyDeleteI find it very hard to disagree, so I won't(!) Very good points. Was the slavery angle necessary at all, then? It seems like the only plausible purpose for it (to have something awful to break free from) is discarded. Interesting.
"You say otherwise but I’d argue that this is due to misplaced relativity – you’re making a negative comparison between this film and its sequels. You’re paralleling The Phantom Menace along side any one of the other films and noting how its dramatic peaks are perhaps not as high. This doesn’t make any sense because what you’re doing is disregarding the context of the whole."
ReplyDeleteI don't think I was, at least consciously. I was especially keen on taking it 'as is' and I think it can be both over-complicated and under-heated. I understand that it is one part of a whole, but, with a three year gap in between you need something to attach it to (if not necessarily comparing) in order for it to have full meaning. It's like an appendix otherwise.
"[The information within these films is of the sort that could have formed appendices to the Originals, much as the explanatory addenda in the back of an epic novel.]
ReplyDeleteCan the same not be said of any Star Wars prequel or sequel? Movies aren’t about information, they’re about experience."
Indeed, but if the film (albeit I said I tried to take it out of context) doesn't fully grip you in and of itself then it starts to feel like footnotes (even if that's the purpose or intention) to what has come before. It is both trying to be its own thing and act as a source for the original trilogy's spring.
"I want to shoot down this “sacred ground” reference as quickly as possible, because it’s the kind of rhetoric that snowballs into people actually treating OT stuff like some sort of quasi-religion."
I was exaggerating / using the kind of language 'they' might use. I like the films a lot. I am in no way a fanatic any more than I would be about AU HASARD BALTHAZAR (I don't dress up as a donkey for Bresson conventions).
You're right that I may as well be banning talk of anything that takes us behind-the-scenes so to speak of the originals but the mystery behind everything (the force) is essential. Once you start to pick at those threads then the entire jumper/structure can come apart. I hope that makes sense.
"The very idea of a Sith influencing Midichlorians to create or prolong life, or to “cheat death”, is what allows the audience to better understand what is happening; instead of just telling Anakin that he can save Padme by using some vague, out-of-nowhere, tacked-on “Dark Side powers”"
ReplyDeletePalpatine could easily have been that vague. He's charismatic, powerful and Anakin is naive and vulnerable. Obviously if there was no mention of Midichlorians in TPM then there wouldn't be in ROTS. I don't see a problem here.I don't think it needs 'credibility'. Does Christianity need 'credibility' for over a billion people? It needs faith, will and an echo of truth
"I can’t be sure; are you criticizing the entire saga for this or just The Phantom Menace?"
ReplyDeleteThe whole saga, in fact. It only really occurred to me when watching TPM, hence its inclusion here.
I don't need a silly scene of a family saying "the emperor is bad, I can't buy bread anymore" or of masses screaming but just, in the general look and atmosphere of the worlds, a feeling of downtroddenness, of being hollowed out, of helplessness and fear.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThanks for these great comments. Thanks for pulling me up on a couple of issues, too. They needed clarification and/or qualification.
I do disagree about CGI. I don't think it's a trade-off of one sort of disbelief for another. With models I don't have to use disbelief - they look real, they seem real. With CGI I need to put my disbelief into overdrive.
ReplyDeleteThe Phantom Menace may very well be little more than an elaborate prologue into the series, but I still think the “elaborate” aspect of it, the way it is done and the varying thematic detail within, is enough to warrant its own cinematic experience. Even I’m not as gripped by it as I am with Revenge of the Sith or The Empire Strikes Back (for simple reasons that the stakes aren’t nearly as high), but I simply do not ask of it as much. To each his own, I guess. I would agree that if, not the plot, but the nature and body of the film–its affect–was attempted in the place of any the following episodes, it probably would fail. As the opening episode, however, it makes for an escape into the Star Wars universe both naively fun and antagonistically intriguing.
ReplyDeleteI would say that The Force remains mysterious and awe-inspiring when doing so best serves the story, for Luke and the original trilogy. In the prequels it becomes more contractual, dissecting and downright problematic, but this complements the very nature of the prequel story; the tone of the piece and the themes being explored. The very mood it puts the audience in, to me, seems fitting. And by “credibility” I’m not saying that the Dark Side needs to be believable for Anakin on some microscopic level, but that it simply feels more thought-out as a storytelling device. The ultimatum presented to Anakin is that he can learn to use the Dark Side to save Padme from dying. Eventually this would lead the audience to question what that actually means, and without a comprehensive idea of Midichlorians for reference then the whole thing would seem like an after-thought in the writing phase, a kind of last minute fill-in-the-gap plot point. I stand by my initial claim that quantifying a certain aspect of The Force only invites for further interpretation, thereby boosting its overall aura.
[I do disagree about CGI. I don't think it's a trade-off of one sort of disbelief for another. With models I don't have to use disbelief - they look real, they seem real. With CGI I need to put my disbelief into overdrive.]
*shrugs* I don know …the giant space slug looks, moves, crinkles and photographs real--in a sense that reminds me that it is merely an arm’s length puppet and NOT an actual asteroid dwelling leviathan. And while it certainly doesn’t “get me” to that place of believability any less than if it were CGI’d, I still don’t see what’s so omnipotently better about tangibility when it lacks proper scale. Another point is that handmade effects can often dictate the visual language of a scene, thus stifling the creative process. Luke fighting the Rancor consists largely of static cuts and boxed-in framing. Don’t get me wrong, I still love that sequence because my imagination is all wrapped up in the story anyhow, but it is one that struggles for kinetic shot-flow. Harryhausen type Dynamation can present all the components–live actors, scaled puppets and mattes–in one plate but the camera is still restricted to that view. Either way, you’re running into obstacles. When our three heroes do battle with their appointed CG monsters in the Geonosian arena, Lucas can view it as a whole and then movie in-and-about with editorial freedom.
I just recently re-watched THE PHANTOM MENACE, as well. It's my least favorite of the PT movies. Yet . . . I still don't agree with your assessment of the film. I feel that it is a lot better than you believe it to be. Sorry. I guess we can agree to disagree.
ReplyDeleteI think The Phantom Menace is very good. In this piece I was really just going over the things that I don't think work. As you can see in the last paragraph splurge, there is a lot I like about it.
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