Obviously he didnt deserve the harassment he got regardless. Like even if he was dogshit he wouldnt have deserved that. But I just rewatched Phantom Menace for the first time in awhile. Young friend of mine are going through the star wars movies because she was a sheltered homeschooled kid and hadnt seen them. Already did the OT, starting on the prequels.
Other than the obvious “oh wow, the racial stereotypes of literally three different alien species in this movie is insane”, the main takeaway my rewatch gave me is “wow ok, Jake LLoyd is average at worst”. He was just like, a regular kid actor? Nothing to write home about like say, young Maise Williams or something. But absolutely fine?
Grown ass adult star war fans be like
We’re going to murder a child for being a childHis performance isn’t good but neither are most of the performances in the film, even by talented, well-established actors. The writing and direction is really to blame here. It’s hard to be a good actor when you’re delivering terrible lines in front of a green screen, talking to a tennis ball on a stick.
As a side note they really should have aged up Anakin to around 13 or 14 instead of like 9. It would have allowed them to find a more charismatic child actor, and removed the weirdness of the Padme age gap.
There were multiple academy award winners and multiple future winners throughout the trilogy. They all had shite performances. Samuel L. Jackson played the most bland dude possible who’s only interesting feature was having a purple lightsaber. That’s a colossal fuck up all on its own.
Yeah the kid was fine and of course didn’t deserve the hate.
The whole movie would have worked better if it just started Anakin closer to the age he is in attack of the clones though. The Jedi are already calling him too old anyway, and it would have made the hotshot piloting fit better and also the start of the Anakin/Padme thing less weird.
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I feel like so much of the story of the prequels just works better as allusions in the OT.
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that would also match the Roman method of dictatorship from Julius Caesar, who took power after coming back as a embittered war veteran with tons of gripes against the senate
The Jedi are already calling him too old anyway
I wish the franchise never took that throwaway line from Yoda in Empire Strikes Back and ran with it to the point of making the magic cops effectively kidnap and indoctrinate very small children, removing them from their families for heroic reasons.
Actually, having the Jedi be child abductors fits perfectly with their mind controlling magic cop bullshit. Both the Dark and Light sides of the Force are evil and fascist and the false dichotomy of the Force should be problematized more.
I see where you’re going with that, but unfortunately just like how
types say “see? Republicans and Democrats both bad, therefore go Libertarian which is basically Republicans that like weed” I think a lot of Star Wars fans do buy into the “both Jedi and Sith bad actually” take but then dive into salad bar ideology like “that’s why my Original Grey Jedi Do Not Steal is a renegade magic cop that doesn’t play by the rules and has Dark Side powers and pragmatically murderfucks but don’t label him as evil, maaaaaaan.”Yes, obviously the liberal centrist thing of going “both sides bad therefore the middle is good” is braindead and Star Wars Fans tend to have poor media literacy and political consciousness, but making the Jedi into Actually Good mind controlling space cops is very much not the solution.
Also, it’s always seemed strange to me that the trademark Light side Force power is self evidently categorically evil (mind control) but the trademark Dark side Force power isn’t (lightning)
Star Wars could have had a cool nondenominational Force presence that rejected the magic cops and the space nazis, but The Acolyte probably buried the idea indefinitely because of incompetence.
Haven’t seen the acolyte, probably won’t bother to because although anti-woke grifter tears are usually a decent heuristic for good media even non-deranged reviews I’ve seen of it are universally bad.
Power of one.
spoiler
Power of two.
spoiler
Power of maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyyyyyyyyyy.
spoiler
That’s kinda where The Last Jedi was going and I liked it a lot, until the movie abruptly switched course just like everything else in that cursed film.
“The Acolyte” could have done something with a non-Jedi non-Sith Force-using system, but it bumblefucked badly and The Mouse will probably avoid the idea from now on.
I think it’s telling that the best Star Wars thing of all time (Andor) had absolutely no Force users or lightsabers whatsoever.
The born-special glowbat wavers were an annoying distraction for me as a kid; I wanted to see more of the cool space battles and shootouts and whenever the camera went back to Luke and his problems I’d get bored and wait impatiently or fast-forward the tape.
This was me as a kid.
And now
The Jedis are so sus. I’m glad they got destroyed. Fucking weirdos
Yeah I never really got what all the hate was about.
The prequel treat wasn’t as dark, gritty, and mature as a lot of enraged manchildren expected it to be. I was there. That was the start of it.
dark, gritty, and mature
Things that the Original Trilogy definitely were folks!!!
Many of them were children when the Original Trilogy was out, so they had grit-covered glasses in thinking that their movie intended for kids was actually for grown-ass adults.
Unless he wrote his own dialogue, he’s absolutely not the problem with the movie. It’s actually kind of a fun movie in a shitty bad movie kind of way.
The pod race is genuinely a blast. As are some parts of the final battle. Jar Jar is mostly annoying and definitely a racial stereotype, but some of his lines got a chuckle out of me even today.
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pod race is the best part of the movie and the only reason any kids enjoyed this film
As a kid it was my favorite part for sure. But I was pretty into the whole thing. I liked a lot of little things like the design of the Naboo starfighters, the stunning ball weapons the Gungans used, I actually did find Jar Jar funny as a kid, Darth Maul as another person mentioned was super cool. Ect.
Naboo starfighters looked amazing. When The Mandalorian got one in a later season it felt like fanservice specifically targeting me.
Yeah I felt the me way when I unlocked one in Star Wars Rogue Leader for the Gamecube.
That’s was such an awesome game! The Naboo starfighter was the best too
I looooove that game. I hate that I dont have a tv I can use my Gamecube on (or one thats not constantly monopolized by my roomate lol). I guess I could figure out the converters necessary to use my Gamecube with my computer monitor. Or emulate it. Because while Rogue Squadron is, Rogue LEader is not on Steam so I dont have it that way.
Because yeahj I really want to replay it because awesome, awesome game.
You have blocked mentally the 80% of this movie that involves walking down hallways and talking about trade negotiations
I literally just rewatched it lmao thats why I made this thread.
I agree there were a couple interesting parts. I just was struck when I rewatched it how dry and boring the vast majority of the movie is. The cool stuff is in like 20 minutes of the run time
Lucas went so far into demonstrating the banality of evil and how decaying liberal governments slide into fascism that he forgot that the banality of evil is banal and hard to watch for too long.
No I largely agree.
Heyy lets not forget, kids (me included) loved Darth Maul. People complain about the choreography being “impractical” and “unrealistic” now but the final battle is so damn hype with Duel of the Fates blasting…
Darth Maul looks sick as fuck, but it’s weird how he pops out of nowhere and is basically not a character but a plot device. We don’t know his motivations or story or anything. Pretty weird for the main antagonist of a film to just appear at the end for the final battle without actually doing anything villainous throughout the plot of the film
As a kid I was just pretty confused. Who is this guy? It’d be like if Darth Vader came on screen for the first time in the 6th film right before throwing the emperor down the hole
The mystery around him was pretty intriguing but it never paid off in the movies. We never get any reveal about who he was or his race of people or faction or anything like that. No consequences or plot further on involve Maul. It’s like he came and went without any relation to the overall story. Qui-gon needed to die, and the movie needed an interesting end fight scene so he exists, but for no other reason really.
Oh he’s 100% a wasted character and an underwhelming plot device - wish he had more compelling ties to the story and characters, but purely from an aesthetic and action perspective he’s very well done IMO. Kid me was already on the shit that I currently love doing with fiction: I assumed he was just “some new dark jedi” that surely must have been doing evil somewhere in the huge expansive universe, and that his story had only started intersecting with the main characters’ now. Obviously it didn’t turn out anything like this lol.
We never get any reveal about who he was or his race of people or faction or anything like that.
On the one hand I love expanding the scope and feel of a setting by making it detailed and fleshed out but having a bit of mystery is key, otherwise you end up like a lot of new star wars, mcu, trek, etc. media that just has to explain every little thing you’ve ever seen on screen
I remember when the toxic side of the Star Wars fandom first made itself loudly, even violently apparent when The Phantom Menace came out…
So many adults (and I must say it, almost entirely men) acting like enraged children because whatever they imagined the first prequel was going to be didn’t happen, up to and including expressions of outright violence (destroying toys and memorabilia on camera in ritualistic gestures of rage), edgy Newgrounds animations that focused on homophobia-coded violence against Jar Jar Binks, and yes, bullying Jake Lloyd for playing a character in a movie. And the bullying went on and on for Jake Lloyd for so long that he abandoned that psychologically painful part of his past, disowned all association with the character and the franchise, and he’s still traumatized by the experience.
My disgust for the Star Wars fandom in general had its genesis there.
Episode One was pretty bad, but the healthy reaction to it would have been “awh that stinks, had potential. Oh well. Hope the next one is better”
Instead, because these manbabies had made their entire identity “Star Wars Fan” they had to do these extremely unhinged and out of pocket reactions to demonstrate that this isn’t what they meant by Star Wars Fan.
When one eats too much of a treat, the treat begins eating into you.
It had been 16 years, like if some franchise in 2008 had been the defining moment of their lives… I guess if Half Life 3 came out today and was just kinda ok
Being an average child actor is sort of by definition bad. Child actors have not had years to train to convey or even honestly learn a broad array of human emotions. There are sometimes good child actors and they are unusual and, for this reason, noteworthy. (And FWIW I think Jake Lloyd was below-average child actor, but it’s not necessary to agree for my point to stand.)
Jake Lloyd was terrible, but like it’s not his fault - he was a child. It’s Lucas’s fault for unnecessarily trying to start his story at childhood, not waiting until a genuinely natural child actor came along and not giving Lloyd (or anyone) natural dialog to work with.
I’d say the last part had a bigger influence than the kids’ actual ability
(the natural dialog part). And direction problems too probably. With kid actors I think direction matters a significant amount more than talent.Anyway obviously I disagree that he was in any way noteably bad. A few lines were wooden but again, I feel that was a direction issue. |
I do think its hard to imagine his story not starting when he was a kid though. So that part I definitively disagree with.
Given that some extremely good actors gave very hollow, wooden and terrible performances for the prequels I am going to blame it on the director as he’s the common thread.
Samuel Jackson, Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman all sucked extremely bad in these too. It takes effort to make these actors boring and flat.
I actually think TPM is the best prequel film.
Sith is the best one by far imo. Legitimately good movie.
General Grievous was such a fun character. Gone too soon.
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General Grievous should’ve been in all 3 films.
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The films should’ve made it more obvious that he’s the Darth Vader of the prequels (they’re both lightsaber-welding cyborgs with breathing problems)
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Grievous should’ve been a central part of Anakin’s fall from grace instead of Anakin forced by the Jedi Order to be an incel. His entire arc honestly should’ve been seeking vengeance against Grievous.
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Grievous getting owned by Obi-Wan with a blaster is good and could be the thing that drives Anakin over the edge with his Moby Dick getting bested through “dishonorable” means.
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Its fairly definitely RotS for me but TPM is a fair bit better than AotC at least.
Best bad guy in the entire universe, by far
Maul was the peak of SW character design. Jar jar had a pretty cool design too, regardless of what the character is.
I was literally his age when the movies came out, don’t understand the hate to this day
He was one of the least offensive parts of the movie tbh, I think people just didn’t like that there was no “main character” to self-insert as.
Anakin is a weird genius messiah-figure slave child, not really relatable and only comes into the movie halfway through and is given very little screen time outside of pod racing (pod races were the best part of the movie though).
Obi-wan was a weird aloof nerd who kept whining about the rules and never expressed any emotion outside of annoyance.
Qui-gon was pretty funny, but died part way through (spoiler). He kinda rocked, as an old burnt out dude who doesn’t give a fuck about the rules anymore and has to deal with this annoying hall monitor kid nipping at his heels.
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Why did the Jedi make an extremely traumatized slave the one true hope for a profession that requires perfect emotional regulation again?
“Prophecy.” “Balance to the Force.” You know, lib shit.
Midichlorians
Why didn’t they do anything about the slavery or freeing anakin’s mother at the very least? The Jedis tee’d him up to become a villain
George Lucas brought worse performances from very accomplished actors
he see dead people
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