October 14, 2011
INITIAL GUT REACTION: I still dislike this film a lot. The sets felt more like it was a video game that reality. Lucas clearly wanted to appease all sins and load it up with a lot more people of color and women in stronger roles. It is also obvious that he is uncomfortable with humans and would rather have inanimate objects and CGI characters. Oh and I can go on the record and say, while I understand an homage and can appreciate them when done well... the Pod Racing scene... a futuristic version of Charlton Heston's Ben-Hur Chariot scene... it just didn't work for me at all.
STAR WARS MYTHOLOGY: This is a tough one because I'm watching it from disc one all of the way through, so I'm trying to view it with that in mind as opposed to having grown up starting with the fourth film first. I believe in this film, Lucas suffers from what I call, "The first episode intros." You might be familiar with this when it comes to television shows... they tend to do it the most. It's when a show has to introduce everyone to you to get you on board quickly so you can then just "relax" and follow the show. I feel there is a lot of this in this film.STORY: Unfortunately this is where growing up with the original "Star Wars" cannot be separated from watching this film. "Menace" follows the same pattern as the the fourth film. Complete with the same kinds of battles, death and ending. It also was very clumsy in setting up everything to me. It feels like a film that knows down the line it has to tie into the fourth film, therefore it's not as much it's own film.
CHARACTERS: Everyone knows by now the Jar Jar Binks was pretty much a waste of a character and it proved that once again. The vice lord and senators were not that interesting at all and even Padme/Queen Amidala felt really stiff.
ACTORS: I felt, with the exception of Natalie Portman they all did a decent job. Although again I will say that Lucas clearly wanted more diversity in this film because there were more black folks in this film then maybe all of his films, Star Wars or not put together. I do feel they wasted Samuel L. Jackson. He could have done so much more and been so stronger.THE LOOK OF THE FILM: As I mentioned the Blu-ray DVD is awesome. However I just felt like I was in a video game over and over and over again. There were too many CGI shots and too many elements in most of the shots. It's great you can replicate things with a computer, but it doesn't mean you have to litter the scream with multiple images EVERY single shot. Oh and why is it in the future traffic still have to be so congested?
THE DISC ITSELF: Nothing too fancy with this one, just the film and then audio commentary.
THINGS I LIKED: The Blu-ray print is amazing. The colors rich and bold. The audio, dynamic.
ALL IN ALL: I cannot tell a lie... to me this was not a good film. I hated the notion when I found out it was being made... I didn't like it in the theater and again, unfortunately I didn't like it again.
OVERALL ALL GRADE: A solid F+
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