Jedi Master Carr
Oct 27th, 2001, 06:57:37 PM
I just read this on one of theforce.net forums and it really irked me it is by Jeffrey Wells an unotiable critic from Reel.com this is what he had to say abou the TPM's success
A Force that Used to Be
For me, it's a bad, bad thing that the DVD of Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace sold 2.2 million units and raked in $45 million during its first week of release. Why? Because The Phantom Menace is a stain on the Star Wars legend — a plastic, sickening, money-grubbing toy franchise disguised as a film. Menace gets almost everything wrong and is way, way off in too many respects to mention, but the main problem was creator George Lucas' conviction that it (and the Star Wars series in general) should primarily be for little kids.
It shouldn't be, and the first two films — the original Star Wars (or A New Hope, released in 1977) and the masterful The Empire Strikes Back (1980) — weren't. It's as simple as that. By any barometer, these first two were made for teenagers and the spiritually young at heart. Phantom Menace was aimed only a growth spurt or two above the Barney or Rugrats crowd.
I admit I found The Phantom Menace mildly diverting — tolerable is a better word — when I first saw it in May 1999, but it hasn't aged well. When I popped the DVD into my player last week, I was unable to watch it for more than a half-hour. This was because it seemed to me even more empty, puerile, pointless (except as a way for Lucas to make more money), uninspired, and kiddie-pandering than it did two and a half years ago.
The currency of the Star Wars films has always been spirit — "the Force." The idea of the Force became a kind of unifying principle for Star Wars fans, who, soon after the opening of A New Hope but especially after the arrival of The Empire Strikes Back, came to regard the series as not just hugely entertaining but as a kind of spiritual epic. Others saw it as a modern-day Arthurian legend. Rest assured, the massive popularity of the Star Wars series wouldn't be what it is today if these first two films had been only about dashing heroics, storm troopers, special effects, celestial shoot-outs, blustery one-liners, and comically grotesque characters.
It is therefore odd, really odd, that the spiritual current of the Star Wars series hasn't been kept alive by Lucas, but by the nerdball fans who adopted it as something to dream and even live by, in a curious but utterly devoted get-a-life kind of way. This was evident for me upon watching Dennis Przywara's just-released documentary Starwoids, which has 18 times more heart and soul than The Phantom Menace and just "gets" the whole thing in richer, more human terms than Lucas apparently does.
Starwoids, which is being distributed by Chris Gore's Film Threat organization, is basically about the fans who waited in line to see The Phantom Menace at two Los Angeles theaters — Mann's Village in Westwood and Mann's Chinese on Hollywood Boulevard — for 42 days. Their vigil began on April 8, 1999 and ended with the first commercial showing of The Phantom Menace in the early morning hours of May 19.
The experience of these two groups gradually builds into something that's partly a Woodstock-y thing and partly about rivalry. But what comes through in the end is a story about heart, community, and spiritual ties.
"There wasn't a rivalry until halfway through it," says Przywara. "On one end was the Mann's Chinese line and their Web site, CountingDown.com, and on the other was Daniel Alter" — the first to line up in Westwood, and anywhere else, for that matter — "who said he wanted nothing to do but see the movie. Daniel felt that he was the true fan. The Mann's Chinese people, on the other hand, said "we're just waiting in line too but we're also raising money for charity." (They actually raised about $60-something thousand. Just don't ask me how.)
"What the movie shows," Przywara claims, "is that here was a bunch of strangers, and now they've all become good friends, and they had something to look back upon."
Where the doc fails, in my view, is by not questioning or at least looking deeper at the ecstatic reactions the fans had to Phantom Menace when they finally saw it. Przywara never gets into the whole Episode 1 backlash that was by far the dominant reaction among the loyalists. For one thing, he didn't cover the all-media Phantom screening that happened a week before the opening and occurred just two blocks south of where the fans were lined up in front of the Village, which would have illustrated the backlash phenomenon quite clearly.
In short, this saga of kids and arrested adolescents waiting for Episode 1 (in hopes of catching a renewed taste of some of those old-time highs) is touching — sweet, flavorful, and sometimes even beautiful. But it avoids its own dark ending. Except for those too caught up in being fans at all cost, the reality was that The Phantom Menace more or less sucked. The dream had been sullied. As Przywara says on the DVD's voice-over commentary, "The crowds who saw the Episode 1 trailer [months earlier] were much more enthusiastic than fans were about the actual Episode 1."
It's common knowledge that when young George Lucas first wrote the original Star Wars film in the mid-'70s, he was basing the Luke Skywalker character upon himself. He is clearly no longer that character in any way, shape, or form. Which Star Wars character, I asked Przywara, does Lucas most resemble now?
"He's now Anakin," said the documentarian. "He's a good guy who's gone a little bad, but hopefully in the end he'll become good again. He went astray for a while, and the spirituality kinda got sidetracked. Say what you will about Phantom Menace, but it was only a movie. Lucas had taken the legend where he wanted to take it for whatever reason, but the fans spoke. 'You're taking something we cherished and you're degrading it,' they said. 'Please don't do that.'"
Perhaps the the bulk of those who paid to see Phantom Menace in '99 and who have now bought the DVD don't feel this way, and may have even enjoyed it. It's hard to argue with 2.2 million units sold in a single week. But the keepers of the spiritual flame have deeper concerns.
It doesn't end there a few days later he comes back with some hate mail
Phantom Dissenters
"I'm sure you're getting hate mail from Star War fanboys who are dragging your name through the mud regarding your comments on Episode One. I'm writing, however, to say that you're right. Episode One is a movie geared toward kids, instead of teens and adults. I knew this when I saw Anakin and Jar-Jar for the first time. Jar-Jar was put in to create comedic moments that weren't needed. Anakin was supposed to be cute and smart, but there was nothing there to suggest that this boy would become Darth Vader. This dumbing-down of the movie is why it's my least favorite Star Wars movie. Sure the other ones were corny, but they had an element of seriousness that made the movies good, something Episode One lacks." — Zac Freiesleben
"You complain that it's such a 'bad, bad thing' that the Episode One DVD has sold so much in its first week. Why? Does it insult you personally somehow that so many people are willing to buy a film they enjoyed (and keep in mind those remarkable sales figures are for a film that has already been out on VHS for ages, and is over two years old) and want to keep on enjoying?
"Look, I could argue all week about how laughably dumb it is to call a film a failure due to a vocal minority who just happen to get their opinions aired more than the other side. If so many people hated Episode One and all its trappings, how did it earn so much money? Money-earning may not have diddly to do with how 'good' a film is, but it still does remain some barometer of success. You can't get those kinds of sales figures (box-office or otherwise) without repeat viewings, and you can't get repeat viewings unless people like the film.
"There's no other reason to explain why you take issue with Starwoid's choice to remain fixed on the experience of the fans waiting for Episode One's premiere. You apparently waited in vain for Pryzwara to voice your own objections to the film, and only then began to cry foul when he didn't. Childish. It's my personal opinion that there are two basic types of people in today's world: those who wait to hate, and those who love what they can. Guess which one you are." — John Matson, Wauwatosa, WI
Wells to Matson: I went to The Phantom Menace in May of '99 looking to feel and show love, and in retrospect I think it's fair to say that the movie took a wet, steamy dump in my lap. I stand by my column. The fact that people like the film is sad … sad beyond measure. I think most people are probably just "okay" with it, and that they love the idea of a Star Wars film and sitting in front of the big screen while John Williams' music soars away. I'll bet a lot of them alleviated their feelings of disappointment by saying, "Well, it wasn't bad" or "It had some cool things."
A couple of years ago in Burbank I spent an hour and a half with Gary Kurtz, George Lucas' producer on the first two Star Wars flicks who left (as I recall) just as Return of the Jedi was starting to roll. Kurtz is a veteran, he was "there," and during our Burbank chat he was saying or agreeing with just about everything I said in the article and then some, albeit with a more whimsical and understanding attitude. How do you like them apples?
If only the standards of The Empire Strikes Back had been held to. The following is a Lucas quote about Empire, upon which hangs all the unsavory things I've come to believe about the man. As you may have read, Lucas was irked at director Irvin Kershner for taking too much time (and therefore spending too much money) shooting Empire in England and on location in Finland. After filming was over and he'd had time to digest what it was, Lucas reportedly said, "They didn't have to make it that good." Case closed. End of discussion.
Man I must say this is one arrogant person. It really mad me
:mad when he said that, The fact that people like the film is sad … sad beyond measure. I think most people are probably just "okay" with it, " What a jerk so if we like the movie I guess we are morons because he is right. I don't have a problem with him not liking the movie that is fine but for him to take the attitude that we (who liked it) are idiot for liking really makes me mad. And to top it off he brings in that disgrunttled Kurtz to back him. Kurtz was a lousy producer, he did not make a single successful or even good movie before or after the ANH and ESB and he is now mad that Lucas left him out of it all so I believe nothing he says. I must finally add Wells is obvisoly a lousy critic because he does have a right to say if a movie is in his or her opinion bad but he has no right to try to make us agree with him, that is completely fascist.
A Force that Used to Be
For me, it's a bad, bad thing that the DVD of Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace sold 2.2 million units and raked in $45 million during its first week of release. Why? Because The Phantom Menace is a stain on the Star Wars legend — a plastic, sickening, money-grubbing toy franchise disguised as a film. Menace gets almost everything wrong and is way, way off in too many respects to mention, but the main problem was creator George Lucas' conviction that it (and the Star Wars series in general) should primarily be for little kids.
It shouldn't be, and the first two films — the original Star Wars (or A New Hope, released in 1977) and the masterful The Empire Strikes Back (1980) — weren't. It's as simple as that. By any barometer, these first two were made for teenagers and the spiritually young at heart. Phantom Menace was aimed only a growth spurt or two above the Barney or Rugrats crowd.
I admit I found The Phantom Menace mildly diverting — tolerable is a better word — when I first saw it in May 1999, but it hasn't aged well. When I popped the DVD into my player last week, I was unable to watch it for more than a half-hour. This was because it seemed to me even more empty, puerile, pointless (except as a way for Lucas to make more money), uninspired, and kiddie-pandering than it did two and a half years ago.
The currency of the Star Wars films has always been spirit — "the Force." The idea of the Force became a kind of unifying principle for Star Wars fans, who, soon after the opening of A New Hope but especially after the arrival of The Empire Strikes Back, came to regard the series as not just hugely entertaining but as a kind of spiritual epic. Others saw it as a modern-day Arthurian legend. Rest assured, the massive popularity of the Star Wars series wouldn't be what it is today if these first two films had been only about dashing heroics, storm troopers, special effects, celestial shoot-outs, blustery one-liners, and comically grotesque characters.
It is therefore odd, really odd, that the spiritual current of the Star Wars series hasn't been kept alive by Lucas, but by the nerdball fans who adopted it as something to dream and even live by, in a curious but utterly devoted get-a-life kind of way. This was evident for me upon watching Dennis Przywara's just-released documentary Starwoids, which has 18 times more heart and soul than The Phantom Menace and just "gets" the whole thing in richer, more human terms than Lucas apparently does.
Starwoids, which is being distributed by Chris Gore's Film Threat organization, is basically about the fans who waited in line to see The Phantom Menace at two Los Angeles theaters — Mann's Village in Westwood and Mann's Chinese on Hollywood Boulevard — for 42 days. Their vigil began on April 8, 1999 and ended with the first commercial showing of The Phantom Menace in the early morning hours of May 19.
The experience of these two groups gradually builds into something that's partly a Woodstock-y thing and partly about rivalry. But what comes through in the end is a story about heart, community, and spiritual ties.
"There wasn't a rivalry until halfway through it," says Przywara. "On one end was the Mann's Chinese line and their Web site, CountingDown.com, and on the other was Daniel Alter" — the first to line up in Westwood, and anywhere else, for that matter — "who said he wanted nothing to do but see the movie. Daniel felt that he was the true fan. The Mann's Chinese people, on the other hand, said "we're just waiting in line too but we're also raising money for charity." (They actually raised about $60-something thousand. Just don't ask me how.)
"What the movie shows," Przywara claims, "is that here was a bunch of strangers, and now they've all become good friends, and they had something to look back upon."
Where the doc fails, in my view, is by not questioning or at least looking deeper at the ecstatic reactions the fans had to Phantom Menace when they finally saw it. Przywara never gets into the whole Episode 1 backlash that was by far the dominant reaction among the loyalists. For one thing, he didn't cover the all-media Phantom screening that happened a week before the opening and occurred just two blocks south of where the fans were lined up in front of the Village, which would have illustrated the backlash phenomenon quite clearly.
In short, this saga of kids and arrested adolescents waiting for Episode 1 (in hopes of catching a renewed taste of some of those old-time highs) is touching — sweet, flavorful, and sometimes even beautiful. But it avoids its own dark ending. Except for those too caught up in being fans at all cost, the reality was that The Phantom Menace more or less sucked. The dream had been sullied. As Przywara says on the DVD's voice-over commentary, "The crowds who saw the Episode 1 trailer [months earlier] were much more enthusiastic than fans were about the actual Episode 1."
It's common knowledge that when young George Lucas first wrote the original Star Wars film in the mid-'70s, he was basing the Luke Skywalker character upon himself. He is clearly no longer that character in any way, shape, or form. Which Star Wars character, I asked Przywara, does Lucas most resemble now?
"He's now Anakin," said the documentarian. "He's a good guy who's gone a little bad, but hopefully in the end he'll become good again. He went astray for a while, and the spirituality kinda got sidetracked. Say what you will about Phantom Menace, but it was only a movie. Lucas had taken the legend where he wanted to take it for whatever reason, but the fans spoke. 'You're taking something we cherished and you're degrading it,' they said. 'Please don't do that.'"
Perhaps the the bulk of those who paid to see Phantom Menace in '99 and who have now bought the DVD don't feel this way, and may have even enjoyed it. It's hard to argue with 2.2 million units sold in a single week. But the keepers of the spiritual flame have deeper concerns.
It doesn't end there a few days later he comes back with some hate mail
Phantom Dissenters
"I'm sure you're getting hate mail from Star War fanboys who are dragging your name through the mud regarding your comments on Episode One. I'm writing, however, to say that you're right. Episode One is a movie geared toward kids, instead of teens and adults. I knew this when I saw Anakin and Jar-Jar for the first time. Jar-Jar was put in to create comedic moments that weren't needed. Anakin was supposed to be cute and smart, but there was nothing there to suggest that this boy would become Darth Vader. This dumbing-down of the movie is why it's my least favorite Star Wars movie. Sure the other ones were corny, but they had an element of seriousness that made the movies good, something Episode One lacks." — Zac Freiesleben
"You complain that it's such a 'bad, bad thing' that the Episode One DVD has sold so much in its first week. Why? Does it insult you personally somehow that so many people are willing to buy a film they enjoyed (and keep in mind those remarkable sales figures are for a film that has already been out on VHS for ages, and is over two years old) and want to keep on enjoying?
"Look, I could argue all week about how laughably dumb it is to call a film a failure due to a vocal minority who just happen to get their opinions aired more than the other side. If so many people hated Episode One and all its trappings, how did it earn so much money? Money-earning may not have diddly to do with how 'good' a film is, but it still does remain some barometer of success. You can't get those kinds of sales figures (box-office or otherwise) without repeat viewings, and you can't get repeat viewings unless people like the film.
"There's no other reason to explain why you take issue with Starwoid's choice to remain fixed on the experience of the fans waiting for Episode One's premiere. You apparently waited in vain for Pryzwara to voice your own objections to the film, and only then began to cry foul when he didn't. Childish. It's my personal opinion that there are two basic types of people in today's world: those who wait to hate, and those who love what they can. Guess which one you are." — John Matson, Wauwatosa, WI
Wells to Matson: I went to The Phantom Menace in May of '99 looking to feel and show love, and in retrospect I think it's fair to say that the movie took a wet, steamy dump in my lap. I stand by my column. The fact that people like the film is sad … sad beyond measure. I think most people are probably just "okay" with it, and that they love the idea of a Star Wars film and sitting in front of the big screen while John Williams' music soars away. I'll bet a lot of them alleviated their feelings of disappointment by saying, "Well, it wasn't bad" or "It had some cool things."
A couple of years ago in Burbank I spent an hour and a half with Gary Kurtz, George Lucas' producer on the first two Star Wars flicks who left (as I recall) just as Return of the Jedi was starting to roll. Kurtz is a veteran, he was "there," and during our Burbank chat he was saying or agreeing with just about everything I said in the article and then some, albeit with a more whimsical and understanding attitude. How do you like them apples?
If only the standards of The Empire Strikes Back had been held to. The following is a Lucas quote about Empire, upon which hangs all the unsavory things I've come to believe about the man. As you may have read, Lucas was irked at director Irvin Kershner for taking too much time (and therefore spending too much money) shooting Empire in England and on location in Finland. After filming was over and he'd had time to digest what it was, Lucas reportedly said, "They didn't have to make it that good." Case closed. End of discussion.
Man I must say this is one arrogant person. It really mad me
:mad when he said that, The fact that people like the film is sad … sad beyond measure. I think most people are probably just "okay" with it, " What a jerk so if we like the movie I guess we are morons because he is right. I don't have a problem with him not liking the movie that is fine but for him to take the attitude that we (who liked it) are idiot for liking really makes me mad. And to top it off he brings in that disgrunttled Kurtz to back him. Kurtz was a lousy producer, he did not make a single successful or even good movie before or after the ANH and ESB and he is now mad that Lucas left him out of it all so I believe nothing he says. I must finally add Wells is obvisoly a lousy critic because he does have a right to say if a movie is in his or her opinion bad but he has no right to try to make us agree with him, that is completely fascist.